They were a wonderful set of burglars, the people who were running San Francisco when I first came to town in 1923, wonderful because, if they were stealing, they were doing it with class and style.

If you are being run out of town, get in front of the crowd and make it look like a parade.

[On entering the restaurant business:] Food has the dubious advantage of being legitimate, and one's customers somehow manage to live longer without sex than food, if you call that living.

No man can be held throughout the day by what happens throughout the night.

Like I always say, if you sit long enough by the crack of the door, you'll see your enemy go by in a hearse.

Beware of people whose halos are on too tight.

Madaming is the sort of thing that happens to you - like getting a battlefield commission or becoming the dean of women at Stanford University.