Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.

The greatness of America is that it produces exuberant geniuses like Louis Armstrong and Fred Astaire and Leonard Bernstein. We are meant to be a jazzy people who talk big and jump on the table and dance; we aren't supposed to be dopey and glum and brood over old injuries.

The reason to retire is to try to avoid embarrassment; you ought to do it before people are dropping big hints. You want to be the first to come up with the idea. You don't want to wait until you trip and fall off the stage.

The funniest line in English is 'Get it?' When you say that, everyone chortles.

I love rhymes; I love to write a poem about New York and rhyme 'oysters' with 'The Cloisters.' And 'The lady from Knoxville who bought her brassieres by the boxful.' I just feel a sort of small triumph.

There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction and in writing, pushing my family away. Books and authors became my family.

Ha! Easy for nuns to talk about giving up things. That's what they do for a living.