There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age.

Don't get it right, just get it written.

American girls often marry someone they can't stand to spite someone they can.

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counselling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, 'How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?' and avoid 'How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?'

Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage.