I like to think of my shining tombstone. It gives me, as you might say, something to live for.

tomorrow's gone-we'll have tonight!

Telegram to a friend who had just become a mother after a prolonged pregnancy: Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you.

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

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

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.

Where's the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown?