I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion.

About mistakes it's funny. You got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs they get mad.

If it's freedom you want, come to Texas. No one there tells you what to do and how you have to do it.

Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.

But I have felt that to be a Jew was, in some ways at least, to be especially privileged.

Any piece of furniture, I don't care how beautiful it is, has got to be lived with, and kicked about, and rubbed down, and mistreated by servants, and repolished, and knocked around and dusted and sat on or slept in or eaten off of before it develops its real character ... A good deal like human beings.

celebratin' New Year's Eve is like eatin' oranges. You got to let go your dignity t' really enjoy 'em.