Because your eyes are slant and slow, Because your hair is sweet to touch, My heart is high again; but oh, I doubt if this will get me much.

Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.

On lady novelists: As artists they're rot, but as providers they're oil wells; they gush. Norris said she never wrote a story unless it was fun to do. I understand Ferber whistles at her typewriter.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song

When I was young and bold and strong, The right was right, the wrong was wrong. With plume on high and flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world. But now I’m old - and good and bad, Are woven in a crazy plaid. I sit and say the world is so, And wise is s/he who lets it go.

There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

His books are exciting and powerful and — if I may filch the word from the booksy ones — pulsing.