It was a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as Captain Sellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it.

It was distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater distinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but he didn't sit up nights to hate anybody but me.
He never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never again signed 'Mark Twain' to anything.

At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast.

I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands--a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.
The captain had an honorable pride in his profession and an abiding love for it.

He ordered his monument before he died, and kept it near him until he did die.