Computers will have to learn that when I quote from some old author who spelled differently from the machine, the wishes of the long-dead author will have to be respected, and the machine will have to mind its manners

That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a big head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of versimilitude.

Nobody who looks as though he enjoyed life is ever called distinguished, though he is a man in a million.

When a man is down on his luck he seems to consume all he can get of coffee and doughnuts.

To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.

No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.

You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.