A man who has spent most of his adult life trying out a series of patent medicines is always an optimist.

It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.

She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say 'when.'

Well, you know, there are limits to the sacred claims of friendship.

As a child of eight Mr. Trout had once kissed a girl of six under the mistletoe at a Christmas party, but there his sex life had come to abrupt halt.

You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.

To say that New York came up to its advance billing would be the baldest of understatements. Being there was like being in heaven without going to all the bother and expense of dying.