Power is a test - the test - of character.

It seems to me that even the least of the human race is touched with genius when mad with love.

[On her morphine addiction:] I was meant to 'taper off.' At times I felt such pains as must afflict a creature while a bigger beast eats and claws at its middle. God-awful things were hiding underneath my bed, and it was no use telling me they were not there - I knew they were, and felt their dreadful ever-changing shapes.

The one continuing problem in my life has always had the shape of just one question: What amusing thing can I do next?

Power is a test - the test - of character.

I was becoming more cunning than an animal in hiding my supply of morphine. A squirrel saving nuts is limited by its undeveloped imagination ... but I was not so handicapped. A squirrel, for example, is debarred from sending money to some greedy doctor or druggist and making arrangements to have a bit of powder sent each day by mail.

a lady could do, so I was told, just about nothing that she might want to do except attend all parties.