The Law likes to be argued with. Take away words and where is the Law? Silence always annoys it.

Music is the ethereal connection between this world and the other.

Imagination seems to be a glory and a misery, a blessing and a curse. Adam, to his sorrow, lacked it. Eve, to her sorrow, possessed it. Had both been blessed - or cursed - with it, there would have been much keener competition for the apple.

Americans were people who wanted to leave every place better than they found it, to leave every man more of a man than they found him. ... Americans could open doors to almost all that was admirable - it was their misfortune, not their fault, that movies and victrolas and advertisements squeezed in when they opened the door.

Family jokes, though rightly cursed by strangers, are the bond that keeps most families alive.

The music paled like a candle and went out.

Sometimes I pose, but sometimes I pose as posing.