Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but by then, it's dead.

Much of our adult morality, in books and out of them, has a stuffiness unworthy of childhood. Our grown-up conclusions often rest on perilously soft bottom.

Shocking writing is like murder: the questions the jury must decide are the questions of motive and intent.

From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.

Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.

A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.