No one in the United States has the right to own millions of acres of American land, I don't care how they came by it.

Bizarre as was the name she bore, Kim Ravenal always said she was thankful it had been no worse.

don't you hate people who say they're not complaining and then complain?

Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt.

Funny, isn't it, how your whole life goes by while you think you're only planning the way you're going to live it?

There are only two kinds of people in the world that really count. One kind's wheat and the other kind's emeralds.

writers of novels are so busy being solitary that they haven't time to meet one another. But then, a writer learns nothing from a writer, conversationally. If a writer has anything witty, profound or quotable to say he doesn't say it. He's no fool. He writes it.