...as for helping me in the outside world, the Convent taught me only that if you spit on a pencil eraser, it will erase ink.

I know that an author must be brave enough to chop away clinging tentacles of good taste for the sake of a great work. But this is no great work, you see.

People ought to be one of two things, young or dead.

But I don't give up; I forget why not.

I fell into writing, I suppose, being one of those awful children who wrote verses. I went to a convent in New York-the Blessed Sacrament... I was fired from there, finally, for a lot of things, among them my insistence that the Immaculate Conception was spontaneous combustion.

Innocence is a desirable thing, a dainty thing, an appealing thing, in its place; but carried too far, it is merely ridiculous.

There is entirely too much charm around, and something must be done to stop it.