A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

There is a cultural taste which tries very hard to get rid of the lice in a fur coat. There is another which tolerates the lice and thinks the coat can be worn with them in it. And finally there is a taste which regards the lice as the most important thing about the coat and consequently places the coat at the lice's disposal.

A pun, though despicable in itself, can be the noblest vehicle of an artistic intention by serving as the abbreviation of a wittyview. It can be a social criticism in the form of an epigram.

Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram.

This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

An artist should make concessions to the listener. That is why Bruckner dedicated one of his symphonies to the Good Lord.

When I read, it is not acted literature; but what I write is written acting.