Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

I hate writing, I love having written.

‎Oh, anywhere, driver, anywhere – it doesn’t matter. Just keep driving.It’s better here in this taxi than it was walking. It’s no good my trying to walk. There is always a glimpse through the crowd...

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can’t say ‘No’ in any of them.

She was pleased to have him come and never sorry to see him go.

Be you wise and never sad,You will get your lovely lad.Never serious be, nor true,And your wish will come to you–And if that makes you happy, kid,You’ll be the first it ever did.

She realizes she doesn’t know as much as God but feels she knows as much as God knew when he was her age.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

There’s life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.

To keep something, you must take care of it. More, you must understand just what sort of care it requires. You must know the rules and abide by them. She could do that. She had...

There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”[Interview, The Paris Review, Summer 1956]

Money cannot buy health, but I’d settle for a diamond-studdedwheelchair.

Why is it no one sent me yet one perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get one perfect rose.

tomorrow’s gone-we’ll have tonight!

RésuméRazors pain you,Rivers are damp,Acids stain you,And drugs cause cramp.Guns aren’t lawful,Nooses give,Gas smells awful.You might as well live.

Hold your pen and spare your voice.

Then she told herself to stop her nonsense. If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them, more easily each time, so easily, soon,...

I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.

He’ll be cross if he sees I have been crying. They don’t like you to cry. He doesn’t cry. I wish to God I could make him cry. I wish I could make him cry...

By the time you swear you’re his,Shivering and sighing.And he vows his passion is,Infinite, undying.Lady make note of this –One of you is lying.

The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.

You think You’re frightening me with Your hell, don’t You? You think Your hell is worse than mine.

I don’t know much about being a millionaire, but I’ll bet I’d be darling at it.

It costs me never a stab nor squirm / To tread by chance upon a worm. / Aha, my little dear, / I say, Your clan will pay me back one day.

Why, that dog is practically a Phi Beta Kappa. She can sit up and beg, and she can give her paw — I don’t say she will but she can.

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.

Some men break your heart in two,Some men fawn and flatter,Some men never look at you;And that cleans up the matter.

In youth, it was a way I had,To do my best to please.And change, with every passing ladTo suit his theories.But now I know the things I knowAnd do the things I do,And if you...

And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.

Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.

My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows. He’ll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway of the morrows. He’ll live his days where the sunbeams start,...

If I didn’t care for fun and such,I’d probably amount to much.But I shall stay the way I am,Because I do not give a damn.

Four be the things I’d have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,Painter or plumber or never-do-well,Do me a favor and shut your face -Poets alone should kiss and tell.

Inventory:”Four be the things I am wiser to know:Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.Four be the things I’d been better without:Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.Three be the things I shall never attain:Envy, content, and...

And if my heart be scarred and burned,The safer, I, for all I learned.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,a medley of extemporanea,And love is a thing that can never go wrong,and I am Marie of Romania.

Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.

Little WordsWhen you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;And I can only stare, and shape my griefIn little words.I cannot conjure loveliness, to drownThe bitter woe...

One more drink and I’d have been under the host.

MenThey hail you as their morning starBecause you are the way you are.If you return the sentiment,They’ll try to make you different;And once they have you, safe and sound,They want to change you all around.Your...

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

I won’t telephone him. I’ll never telephone him again as long as I live. He’ll rot in hell, before I’ll call him up. You don’t have to give me strength, God; I have it myself....

It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.

I know that an author must be brave enough to chop away clinging tentacles of good taste for the sake of a great work. But this is no great work, you see.

I like to have a martini,Two at the very most.After three I’m under the table,after four I’m under my host.

You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.

Eternity is two people and a ham”) is an old quip from the days when a ham was huge—far more than two people could finish. Irma Rombauer mentions this line in her famous cookbook, The...

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.