Mostly I just kill time," he said, "and it dies hard.

There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.

The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.

The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.

There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.

If you're not tough it's hard to survive in this world; and if you're not kind then you don't deserve to survive.

The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.