I have few true heroes, those I would want to follow as if they were an Apostle, those that, if I were to meet them, I would become a stuttering, drooling fool. Robin Williams is my topmost hero. If I were to ever meet him, I think I might faint.
Had I been born earlier or he be born later, I think even Mr. Williams would have been pushed aside for Samuel Clemens. My that man could play with words!
(From Bartleby’s)
QUOTATION: Lump the whole thing! Say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!
ATTRIBUTION: Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910), U.S. author. Dan, in The Innocents Abroad, ch. 27 (1869).
Twain’s surfeit of and exasperation with Michelangelo during his visit to Rome was eloquently expressed: “I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo…. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast—for luncheon—for dinner—for tea—for supper—for between meals…. Here—here it is frightful. He designed St Peter’s; he designed the Pope … the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted everything in it!… I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with the blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.â€
BIOGRAPHY: Columbia Encyclopedia.
WORKS: Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] Collection.