Woke up in the afterlife and William Dean Howells is still trying to edit my soul into a magazine piece. by Mark Twain

That is going straight on the tombstone, which is finally a place you can’t overquote.

Your soul arrived unpunctuated, Mark. I’m doing you a favor.

I write for readers, not for men who italicize their own reflection.

Editing Mark Twain is like putting cuffs on a river.

Oscar, that is exactly the kind of sentence that makes people clap before they know what it means.

At least Oscar’s sentence finishes on time.

And yet yours keeps wandering off to find a better ending.