Baccarat is a game whereby the croupier gathers in money with a flexible sculling oar, then rakes it home. If I could have borrowed his oar I would have stayed.

When you catch an adjective, kill it - perhaps the best possible advice for budding writers.

I don't want no better book than what your face is.

It is a good idea to obey all the rules when you're young just so you'll have the strength to break them when you're old.

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

The only certainties in life are death and taxes.

I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be edited by children.