The notion of sitting down and conjuring up, not only words in which to clothe thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed--the whole thing was absurdly beyond his desires.

I won’t kiss you. It might get to be a habit and I can’t get rid of habits.

The helpless ecstasy of loosing himself in her charm was a powerful opiate rather than a tonic.

If he had to bring all the bitterness and hatred of the world into his heart, he was not going to be in love with her again.

I want to give a really BAD party. I mean it. I want to give a party where there’s a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. You wait and see.

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.

Courage to me means ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life-not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the bleakness of living. A sort of insistence on the value of life and the worth of transient things...My courage is faith-faith in the eternal resilience of me-that joy'll come back, and hope and spontaneity. And I feel that till it does, I've got to keep my lips shut and my chin high, and my eyes wide