Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

- Mark Twain -

Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German.

- Notebook #14, 11/1877 – 7/1878 Mark Twain -

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

- Appendix D of A Tramp Abroad, “That Awful German Language” by Mark Twain -

I don’t believe there is anything in the whole earth that you can’t learn in Berlin except the German language.

(Mark Twain after his visit to Berlin in the winter of 1891/92)

Deutsche Übersetzung: Ich glaube nicht, dass es irgendetwas auf der ganzen Welt gibt, was man in Berlin nicht lernen könnte – außer der deutschen Sprache!

In Paris, they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

- Mark Twain -