Mark Twain

On New England weather:

The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether—Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there. And the thunder.

When the thunder begins to merely tune up and scrape and saw, and key up the instruments for the performance, strangers say,

"Why, what awful thunder you have here!"

But when the baton is raised and the real concert begins, you'll find that stranger down in the cellar with his head in the ash-barrel.