I never blame failure - there are too many complicated situations in life - but I am absolutely merciless toward lack of effort.

When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. That's my middle-west - not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.

Those days are over. I have to be won all over again every time you see me.

Work like hell! I had 122 rejection slips before I sold a story.

One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

No," interrupted Marcia emphatically. "And you're a sweet boy. Come here and kiss me." Horace stopped quickly in front of her. "Why do you want me to kiss you?" he asked intently. "Do you just go round kissing people?" "Why, yes," admitted Marcia, unruffled. "'At's all life is. Just going around kissing people.

My God,' he gasped, 'you're fun to kiss.