As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public libraries and stamp dates in books..

She was kind of girl who'd eat all your cashews and leave you with nothing but peanuts and filberts..

The best way to find out if you have any friends is to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your friends. I don't mean the ones that hang on f….

She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me..

The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication..

[As a screenwriter] I have a sense of exile from thought, a nostalgia of the quiet room and balanced mind. I am a writer, and there comes a time when….

I merely say that all reading for pleasure is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man….

However toplofty and idealistic a man may be, he can always rationalize his right to earn money..

The publishers and others should quit worrying about losing customers to TV. The guy who can sit through a trio of deodorant commercials to look at F….

Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness..

So by all means let's have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope h….

Your rat tail is all the fashion now. I prefer a bushy plume, carried straight up. You are Siamese and your ancestors lived in trees. Mine lived in p….

The more you reason the less you create..

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities..

The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no c….

Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar..

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck..

Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one to….

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and ….

The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called ''significant literature'' will only be sold to this p….

One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere..