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Who really said it

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning

Written by Mark Twain 1835–1910 · American humorist, novelist and lecturer
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Twain wrote it in a letter of 15 October 1888 answering the Rev. George Bainton, who had asked working authors how they composed. Bainton printed the reply in The Art of Authorship (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890), pp. 87–88, where the sentence appears word for word — though the lightning-bug wordplay it turns on was Josh Billings’, and Twain said so elsewhere.

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“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning” Mark Twain, letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, printed in George Bainton, ed., The Art of Authorship (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890), 87–88. The lightning-bug wordplay was Josh Billings' first, by 1869; Twain credited him.

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In context

Evoking the world of Mark Twain — American humorist, novelist and lecturer · born Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Theme: "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The letter, and the book that printed it

Work
The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners
Written
Letter to the Rev. George Bainton, 15 October 1888, from Hartford
First published
Compiled and edited by George Bainton · New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890 · Twain’s section pp. 85–88, this line on pp. 87–88
Earlier wordplay
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) had the lightning / lightning-bug contrast by 1869

Unconsciously he accustoms himself to writing short sentences as a rule. At times he may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure that there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; when he is done with it, it won’t be a sea-serpent, with half of its arches under the water, it will be a torchlight procession.

“Well, also he will notice in the course of time, as his reading goes on, that the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning. After that, of course, that exceedingly important brick, the exact word—however, this is running into an essay, and I beg pardon. So I seem to have arrived at this: doubtless I have methods, but they begot themselves, in which case I am only their proprietor, not their father.” The Art of Authorship (1890), pp. 87–88

Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of the 1890 Appleton edition ↗. Twain is describing a young writer in the third person — the “bricks” are the sentences a reader unconsciously keeps or rejects. Note the book’s hyphen in “lightning-bug,” which most modern reprints drop.

Scanned 1890 first American edition
Read Bainton's The Art of Authorship at the Internet Archive
Full text of the 1890 Appleton edition (Twain's section begins p. 85)

How it got here

  • 6 October 1888 — the Rev. George Bainton, writing from Coventry, England, asks Samuel Clemens about his methods of composition. The incoming letter is catalogued in the Mark Twain Project’s letters archive ↗.
  • 15 October 1888 — Twain replies from Hartford. Mark Twain Day By Day ↗ dates the answer and transcribes it with Twain’s ampersands: “the difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug & the lightning.”
  • 1890 — Bainton prints the letter in The Art of Authorship (New York: D. Appleton and Company), where the sentence runs across pp. 87–88 in the form everyone now quotes, with “’tis” and a hyphenated “lightning-bug” — read it in the scan ↗.
  • Already in circulation by 1869 — Quote Investigator ↗ shows the lightning / lightning-bug contrast was Josh Billings’ joke first, and that Twain later credited him for it by name.
Public domain

The line comes from Twain’s 1888 letter as first published in George Bainton’s The Art of Authorship (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890). A work first published in 1890 is in the public domain in the United States, and Twain died in 1910, so both the text and the passage quoted here are free to use.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Twain wrote it — but check the wording, and the credit

This is one of the rare Twain lines that survives contact with a primary source. What does not survive is the version most people repeat, or the assumption that the joke was his to begin with.

Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) Twain’s source

Quote Investigator ↗ documents Billings’ version in an 1869 newspaper collection of his sayings: “Don’t mistake vivacity for wit, thare iz just az mutch difference az thare iz between lightning and a lightning bug.” QI also quotes Twain crediting Billings for exactly that comparison in an unpublished manuscript its editor dates to 1895, and again in a New York speech of 30 November 1901. QI’s conclusion: the core of the joke was Billings’; Twain wrote the popular variant.

a reversed misquote wrong order

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation describes finding this flipped wording on site after site ↗ — quotationspage.com, iwise.com, thinkexist.com and others — before a printed book supplied the real order. It matters: in Twain’s sentence the almost right word is the bug and the right word is the lightning, so reversing the pair inverts the joke.

Bainton’s printed text wording

Every circulating version follows the 1890 book, which reads “’tis the difference.” The transcription of the letter itself in Mark Twain Day By Day ↗ reads “it’s the difference” and keeps Twain’s ampersands and the hyphen in “almost-right.” The two texts simply differ on that word; the sentence quoted here is the printed one.

Twain really did write it, in a letter of 15 October 1888, and it really is printed in The Art of Authorship (1890), pp. 87–88 ↗ — but the lightning-bug joke was Josh Billings’, and Twain was the first to say so.

Context

A questionnaire, answered by a man who claimed to have no method

In the 1880s a Coventry minister named George Bainton wrote round to the famous authors of the day asking how they actually worked, so he could pass the advice on to beginners. Twain’s reply, sent from Hartford on 15 October 1888, opens by refusing the premise: “Your inquiry has set me thinking,” he wrote, “but, so far, my thought fails to materialise… I am not sure that I have methods in composition.”

Then he describes one anyway. Sentences you like get stored in a “model-chamber” and go, brick by brick, into the building you eventually call your style; the ones that confuse you get quietly rejected. Long sentences become sea-serpents with half their arches under water. Short ones become a torchlight procession. And somewhere in that unconscious sorting, a writer notices that almost-right and right are not neighbours at all — they are a bug and a storm.

’Tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Where the joke actually came from

Twain had been carrying the comparison for decades, and he knew whose it was. Quote Investigator quotes an unpublished manuscript, dated by its editor to 1895, in which Twain remembers his friend Josh Billings on the lecture platform and attributes to him: “Some folks mistake vivacity for wit; whereas the difference between vivacity and wit is the same as the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”

At the St. Andrew’s Society dinner in New York on 30 November 1901 he credited Billings again, this time with a third framing — the difference between humour and wit — according to the text QI cites from Mark Twain Speaking. Billings supplied the image; Twain found the subject it was really about.

Bainton, for his part, printed the letter without a date and introduced it with nothing more than “he writes.” The 15 October 1888 dating comes from the Mark Twain Papers, by way of Mark Twain Day By Day.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Work Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: The Almost Right Word and the Right Wordquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: confirms Twain’s 1888 letter and its 1890 printing, and traces the lightning / lightning-bug wordplay to Josh Billings by 1869, with Twain crediting him in 1895 and 1901.
The Art of Authorship (1890) — full textarchive.org

Scanned text of the D. Appleton first American edition. Twain’s contribution starts on p. 85; the sentence straddles pp. 87–88.
Mark Twain — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry citing the letter to George Bainton of 15 October 1888 as printed in The Art of Authorship (1890), pp. 87–88.
Fireflies — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Places Josh Billings’ “Don’t mistake vivacity for wit” from Josh Billings’ Old Farmer’s Allminax (January 1871) directly beside Twain’s line as “comparable to.”
Mark Twain Day By Day — 15 October 1888twainsgeography.com

David Fears’ day-by-day chronology, via the Center for Mark Twain Studies: dates the reply to Bainton and transcribes it from the Mark Twain Papers.
Beware the Internetgrammarbook.com

Documents how the reversed misquote — “the difference between lightning and a lightning bug” — spread across quotation websites.

The real author

Who wrote it

Mark Twain

1835–1910 · American humorist, novelist and lecturer · born Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (30 November 1835 – 21 April 1910) wrote as Mark Twain, a Mississippi riverboat call for two fathoms of water. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn made him the most quoted American writer alive, and the most quoted dead one since — which is exactly why so many lines get pinned on him that he never wrote. This one he did write, in a letter, when a stranger asked him to explain his craft.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Twain, Mark. Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888. In George Bainton, comp. and ed., The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners, 87–88. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1890.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning’?” Last verified 29 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-difference-between-the-almost-right-word-and-the-right/

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