I cannot exist without the oxygen of laughter.

A capacity for going overboard is a requisite for a full-grown mind.

The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).

A writer's business is minding other people's business ... all the vices of the village gossip are the virtues of the writer.

There is something more annoying than pleasant in finding neighbors from back home chiselling in on your own exclusive New York. It mitigates your triumph in having conquered the great city and brings home the ungratifying truth that anyone can do it.

Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.

All Americans come from Ohio originally, if only briefly.