H.L. Mencken Quotes

“There is reinforcement in such familiar back-formations as Chinee from Chinese, Portugee from Portuguese.”

“This story, which takes place one a Sunday in July in a hot, deserted Lisbon, is the Requiem that the character I refer to as “I” was called on to perform in this book. Were someone to ask me why I wrote this story in Portuguese, I would answer simply that a story like this could only be written in Portuguese; it's as simple as that. But there is something else that needs explaining. Strictly speaking, a Requiem should be written in Latin, at least that's what tradition prescribes. Unfortunately, I don't think I'd be up to it in Latin. I realised though that I couldn't write a Requiem in my own language and I that I required a different language, one that was for me A PLACE OF AFFECTION AND REFLECTION.”

“What was hard to bear is sweet to remember.”

“Visits always give pleasure - if not the arrival the departure.”

“Laws go where dollars please.”

“A rich widow weeps with one eye and signals with the other.”

“He who serves two masters has to lie to one.”

“Visits always give pleasure--if not the arrival, the departure.”

“Street performances?""A little singing. A little martial arts. Some interpretive dance.""Wow.""I know! The Portuguese have taste.”

“My brother and I have matching tattoos on our arms. It says, 'Humility is strength,' in Portuguese and Italian, because my genius brother taught English in both Italy and Brazil.”