... I never was one to get upset about a few scratches on a motor vehicle, it is meant to be used, not saved.

Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's not a surprise anymore.

In California virtually everyone has had their teeth whitened. If they all smiled at once, they would give us a headache.

When the New Yorker turned down work, they turned it down in such an elaborately gentlemanly way making apologies for their own shortsightedness. Undoubtedly it was their fault but somehow for some reason this fell short of the remarkably high standard that you by your own work have set for yourself. They had a way of rejecting my work that made me feel sorry for them somehow.

Sometimes you have to avoid mentioning things because people's feelings are tender.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.

When you come to expect humor of people, you will never get it.