I don't want to be classed as a humorist. It makes me feel guilty. I've never read a good tough quotable female humorist, and I never was one myself. I couldn't do it. A "smartcracker" they called me, and that makes me sick and unhappy. There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

[On the ringing of her doorbell or telephone:] What fresh hell is this?

I wish, I wish I were a poisonous bacterium.

There was a reason for the cost of those perfectly plain black dresses.

[Completely bored by a country weekend, wiring to a friend:] For heaven's sake, rush me a loaf of bread, enclosing saw and file.

Travel, trouble, music, art, a kiss, a frock, a rhyme -- I never said they feed my heart, but still they pass my time.

Now that you've got me right down to it, the only thing I didn't like about The Barrets of Wimplole Street was the play.