I might repeat to myself . . . a list of quotations from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.

There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it.

I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.

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

The nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. The boys have gone hog-wild with liberty, yet the short flat terms used over and over, both in dialogue and narrative, add neither vigor nor clarity; the effect is not of shock but of something far more dangerous — tedium.

Some men break your heart in two, Some men fawn and flatter, Some men never look at you; And that cleans up the matter.

Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.