[On James Gould Cozzens' By Love Possessed:] It is a vast enterprise encompassing all sorts of love, except, naturally, those branches which extend to Jews, Negroes, and people who have lost track of their great-grandparents.

I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium.

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

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

Just begin a story with such a phrase as 'I remember Disraeli - poor old Dizz! - once saying to me, in answer to my poke in the eye,' and you will find me and Morpheus off in a corner, necking.

The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.

I wanted to be cute. That's the terrible thing. I should have had more sense.