If misery spelled revolt, we should have had nothing but revolt from the beginning of time. On the contrary, it is quite rare.

I know your breed; all your fine officials debauch the younger girls who are afraid to lose their jobs: that's as old as Washington.

Old age and youth cannot live together.

It is a rule of creative ability that it does nothing of any value, while it is possessed by this afflatus of vanity.

A mother! What are we worth really? They all grow up whether you look after them or not. That poor miserable brat of his is growing up, and I certainly licked the hide off her; and she's seen marriage at its worst, and now she's dreaming about 'supermen' and 'great men'. What is the good of doing anything for them?

A woman can't be, until a girl dies. . . . I mean the sprites that girls are, so different from us, all their fancies, their illusions, their flower world, the dreams they live in.

Los Angeles is a Yukon for crime-story writers.