I hung up. It was a good start, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk..

Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year..

It is wrong to be harsh with the New York critics, unless one admits in the same breath that it is a condition of their existence that they should wr….

A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else..

If you liked a book, don't meet the author.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring..

The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point..

The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me..

It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone..

Great critics, of whom there are piteously few, build a home for the truth..

There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that..

I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars..

A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins..

Nice: meaning I'm going to be dating leather-wearing alcoholics and complaining about them - to you..

Courage is a strange thing: One can never be sure of it.

The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous..

The wise screen writer is he who wears his second-best suit, artistically speaking, and doesn't take things too much to heart. He should have a touc….

I'm in a wild mood tonight. I want to go dance in the foam. I hear the banshees calling..

I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It….

I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress. Never answer a critic..

When I left Merle was wearing a bungalow apron and rolling pie crust. She came to the door wiping her hands on the apron and kissed me on the mouth a….