When I see a shipwreck, I like to know what caused the disaster...I learned nothing but the glow that wrapped her face when the soup came. That's the story.

I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.

[A]ll of life, as we know it, moves in little, unavailing circles. More justly than to anything else, it can be likened to the game of baseball. Crack! we hit the ball, and away we go. If we earn a run (in life we call it success) we get back to the home plate and sit upon a bench. If we are thrown out, we walk back to the home plate -- and sit upon a bench.

To a woman nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.

It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.

It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.