Everyone is a potential murderer-in everyone there arises from time to time thewish to kill-though not the will to kill.

There's nothing so dangerous for anyone who has something to hide as conversation.

Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists.

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.

I suppose without curiosity a man would be a tortoise. Very comfortable life, a tortoise has.

I looked at her. Sheila was my girl--the girl I wanted--and wanted for keeps. But it wasn't any use having illusions about her. Sheila was a liar and probably always would be a liar. It was her way of fighting for survival--the quick easy glib denial. It was a child's weapon--and she'd probably never got out of using it. If I wanted Sheila, I must accept her as she was--be at hand to prop up the weak places. We've all got our weak places. Mine were different from Sheila's, but they were there.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.