If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy.

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

Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.

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.

It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes.

Don't feel bad when I die; I've been dead for a long time.