A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

She was the music heard faintly on the edge of sound.

I'm all done with hating you. It's all washed out of me. I hate people hard, but I don't hate them very long.

The overall picture, as the boys say, is of a degraded community whose idealism even is largely fake. The pretentiousness, the bogus enthusiasm, the constant drinking, the incessant squabbling over money, the all-pervasive agent, the strutting of the big shots (and their usually utter incompetence to achieve anything they start out to do), the constant fear of losing all this fairy gold and being the nothing they have never ceased to be, the snide tricks, the whole damn mess is out of this world.

A good title is the title of a successful book.

The keynote of American civilization is a sort of warm-hearted vulgarity. The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.