I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.

Hollywood is the one place on earth where you could die of encouragement.

[On William Lyon Phelps's Happiness:] It is second only to a rubber duck as the ideal bathtub companion. It may be held in the hand without causing muscular fatigue ... and it may be read through before the water has cooled. And if it slips down the drain pipe, all right, it slips down the drain pipe.

Said of her husband on the day their divorce became final: Oh, don't worry about Alan. . . . Alan will always land on somebody's feet.

Genius can write on the back of old envelopes but mere talent requires the finest stationery available.

Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.

Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart, out wailing in the rain.