Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and those that don't need to be told.

I was born in the country of Hogg and Scott between the Yarrow and the Tweed, in the year 1864.

The power to love what is purely abstract is given to few.

I have been devoured all my life by an incurable and burning impatience: and to this day find all oratory, biography, operas, films, plays, books, and persons, too long.

The Almighty is a wonderful handicapper: He will not give us everything.

From the happy expression on their faces you might have supposed that they welcomed the war. I have met with men who loved stamps, and stones, and snakes, but I could not imagine any man loving war.

[To Jean Harlow, who repeatedly mispronounced her first name:] No, no, Jean. The t is silent, as in Harlow.