I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together

Remember to get the weather in your damn book-weather is very important.

It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.

If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.

Only one marriage I regret. I remember after I got that marriage license I went across from the license bureau to a bar for a drink. The bartender said, "What will you have, sir?" And I said, "A glass of hemlock."

It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.

Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well