Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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ADVERBS

I am dead to adverbs; they cannot excite me. To misplace an adverb is a thing which I am able to do with frozen indifference; it can never give me a pang. ... There are subtleties which I cannot master at all,--the confuse me, they mean absolutely nothing to me,--and this adverb plague is one of them. ... Yes, there are things which we cannot learn, and there is no use in fretting about it. I cannot learn adverbs; and what is more I won't.
- "Reply to a Boston Girl," Atlantic Monthly, June 1880

 

The best collection of Twain's quotes on writers and writing, is Mark Dawidziak's collection MARK MY WORDS. Available from amazon.com

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