Bookshelf Battle

“Never learn how to murder a zombie. If you don’t learn, you’ll become quite adept at getting others to murder zombies for you.”

Was the Old American West a safe place after it was zombed?

Certainly not. But having learned to tame this great land, Westerners were a hearty stock, and highly celebrated author Mark Twain was no exception.

Here are some observations about the undead he penned by candlelight after bashing a particularly gruesome zombie’s brains in with the business end of his walking stick.

• “An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven’t been done before. A zombie is a creature who will eat your brains, especially if your brains have never been eaten before.”

• “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young. The second greatest thing you can do is to protect your mind from the chomping teeth of hideous zombies.”

• “Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. For example, bash in the brains of twelve zombies before breakfast and you won’t have to worry about a zombie in the vicinity trying to eat your brains for the rest of the day.”

• “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. In fact, health books rarely have much useful information about how to cure the effects of a zombie bite.”

• “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place. The feeling usually lasts until a wretched zombie drops in to cock it all up.”

• “I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell. You see, I have friends in both places. I dare say I shall be sending more zombies to hell in the near future.”

• “I have never taken any exercise other than sleeping, resting, and zombie murder.”

• “In his private heart no man respects himself. Few zombies respect themselves either, what with the way they walk about at all hours of the night in various states of dress demanding to feed upon your brains.”

• “New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin. I suspect it is as delicious to us as our brains are to those infernal zombies.”

• “It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you. Throw a zombie into the mix and you may even get your brains eaten.”

• “There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice. Cowardice can even serve as a protection against danger. I have never seen a coward get devoured by a zombie.”

• “The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. Even more difficult to kill is a zombie wearing a helmet. Try as you may, you just can’t bash its miserable brains in, and good luck getting the insipid beast to take it off.”