“Stay away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do this, but really big people make you feel that you too can become great." This is a quote from Mark Twain. To appreciate Mark Twain, one must study his life, his literature, and his legacy. What if someone said Mark Twain wasn't really Mark Twain? They would be right, believe it or not. Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens born November 30, 1835 (marktwainhouse.org). “Samuel Clemens was born in a rented two-room shack about thirty-five miles southeast of Hannibal in Florida, Missouri. He was the fourth child and sixth of seven children born to John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens” (Ward 3). “Samuel was the name of his paternal grandfather, Langhorne the surname of his father's old friends, but in his early years because of his size and frailty, everyone called him “Little Sammy” (Ward 3). "An infant son had died before Sam's birth — only four of the children would survive to adulthood — and Sam, born 2 months premature, was so thin and sickly, his mother recalled, "I couldn't see any promise in him!"” (Ward 3). Mark Twain remembered never seeing his father laugh. “When I was a boy my father and I were always on very distant terms: a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak” (Mark Twain) .Mark's father died when Mark was eleven. “My mother was very alive, fond of emotion, fond of novelty, fond of everything that was appropriate for church members to engage in...always ready for processions. of July 4th, Sunday school processions, lectures, conventions, camp meetings, church revivals…and I never missed a funeral” (Mark Twain). “He also loved dancing and music,…… half of the paper ……g/>.Lauber, John. The making of Mark Twain: a biography. New York: American Heritage, 1985. Print. "Mark Twain Biography". Bio.com. A&E Networks Television and Web. March 18, 2014. "The Official Website of Mark Twain." The official website of Mark Twain. Np, nd Web. March 18, 2014. .Twain, Mark, and Charles Neider. The Autobiography of Mark Twain: Including Chapters Now Published for the First Time. New York: HarperPerennial, 1990. Print.Ward, Geoffrey C., Ken Burns, and Dayton Duncan. Mark Twain An Illustrated Biography. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2001. Print.Wolff, Geoffrey. "The voice of America." The New York Times. The New York Times, October 1, 2005. Web. March 18. 2014. .