He (The Agent) just takes ten per cent of your life.

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.

All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and if it does not it dies and is forgotten.

The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.

That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.

A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.

The agent never receipts his bill, puts his hat on and bows himself out. He stays around forever, not only for as long as you can write anything that anyone will buy, but as long as anyone will buy any portion of any right to anything that you ever did write. He just takes ten per cent of your life.