Don't you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour — but a little bit of eternity dropped in your hands — and who knows what to do with it?

Oh, you can't describe someone you're in love with!

There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

The object of art is to make eternal the desperately fleeting moment.

Oh, I haven't reached any peak. I hit the bottom in the '60s. When a certain actress undertook the leading role in a recent play of mine, she referred to me as "that old derelict." Not to my face, but behind my back.