[I'm] as broke as the ten commandments.

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.

Work, the what's-its-name of the thingummy and the thing-um-a-bob of the what d'you-call-it.

I am not always good and noble. I am the hero of this story, but I have my off moments.

No novelists any good except me. Sovietski -- yah! Nastikoff -- bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G. Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any good except me.

Chumps always make the best husbands. All the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains.

Some time ago," he said, "--how long it seems! -- I remember saying to a young friend of mine of the name of Spiller, 'Comrade Spiller, never confuse the unusual with the impossible.' It is my guiding rule in life.