You cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oyster's ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety or invertebrates, to start with — belemnites, trilobites, jebustites, Amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them to soak in a primary sea, and wait and see what will happen.


Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1891-1910, Was the World Made for Man? (p. 573), The Library of America. 1992

Mark Twain Quotes

You cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oyster's ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety or...

You cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oyster's ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety or...

You cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oyster's ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety or...

You cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oyster's ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety or...