Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward - and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.

I don't know what anybody else in the world would want to thank America for, but man, it [jazz] works. What I like about it - and what public health people ought to like about it - it's safe sex.

What good is a planet called Earth, after all, if you own no land?

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow.

There is no way a beautiful woman can live up to what she looks like for any appreciable length of time.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

The little girls were wearing black party dresses and black party shoes, so strangers would know at once how nice they were.