"So few women have any clear idea of the power their ordinary beauty holds over so many of us men."

"It's only the dead who'll tell you the truth."

"Loneliness comes up so slowly on a man, it can leave him helpless.

"Life in New York is a constant struggle to die of natural causes."

"Indulgences should never be hesitant."

"The trouble with hope is that it only pays off when there's some sense in back of it."

"There's no sense to being Irish unless you know the world is going to break your heart."

"Things you plan in life usually turn out to be meaningless, things you accumulate without knowing it become your real treasure."

"Here's to politics in the U.S. of A. – to the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other."

"An artist is never poor."

"So you want to be a reporter? Well, here's some advice for this racket: Don't ever change your mind. It may not be the oldest profession, but it's the best."

"We must admit that today conformity is on the Left. To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereotyped replies, constantly at a loss when faced with truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws. The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exercise of the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty."

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head."

"Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is readon. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do."

"Anybody who can't keep his enemies in his head has too many enemies."

"Fortunately I have never learned to take the good advice I give myself nor the counsel of my fears."

"Any man can face death but to be committed to bring it as close as possible while performing certain classic movements and do this again and again and again and then deal it out yourself with a sword to an animal weighing half a ton which you love is more complicated than just facing death."

"Count Basie isn't just a man, or even just a band. He's a way of life."

"Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)."

"The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance."

"Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes place is believable only because it happens."

"I like a good Greek meal better than a good French meal, even though it be heresy to admit it."

"There are only two poptential tragedies in life, and dying young isn't one of them. These are the two real tragedies: If you go through life and you don't love ... and if you go through life and you don't tell those whom you love that you love them."

"The highest compliment we can give to God, our Creator, is to thoroughly enjoy the gift of life. One should never look a gift universe in the mouth! The best way to pay for a beautiful moment is to enjoy it."

"We get ready for death by beginning to live life as we should have been living it all along."

"When it is done right, it is the most beautiful thing on earth. When it is not done right, it is horrible."

"Never whine about the French. It's considered a sign of weakness to even acknowledge their existence. Remember: The poor devils haven't won anything since they rebuffed the Kaiser at Marne. Irritating the world into submission is their only hope. Ignore them when you can, agree with them when you can't — but never, ever make eye contact. Particularly after dark."