banner

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

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z


NUDITY

Clemens without his shirt I judge that the first thing a statue dug up in the Campagna does is to go shopping & buy an offensive & obscene fig leaf.
Imagine him cheapening the article at the counter & contriving how to take the innocence out of his nakedness & make the latter most offensive & conspicuous. Animals with fig leaf under tail.
- Notebook #17, Oct. 1878 - Feb. 1879

So it is not nakedness that gives the sense of immodesty, the modifying the nakedness is what does it.
- omitted passage from A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain's Notebooks & Journals, Vol. 2 (DV 4, MTP)

banner logo

Quotations | Newspaper Articles | Special Features | Links | Search