Dear Mary: We all knew you had it in you.

And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.

Los Angeles: Seventy-two suburbs in search of a city.

Upton Sinclair is his own King Charles' head. He cannot keep himself out of his writings, try though he may; or, by this time, try though he doesn't.

I can't talk about Hollywood. It was a horror to me when I was there and it's a horror to look back on. I can't imagine how I did it. When I got away from it I couldn't even refer to the place by name. ''Out there,'' I called it.

Women and elephants never forget.