There’s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
There was always something immensely comic to her in the thought of living elsewhere than New York. She could not regard as serious proposals that she share a western residence.
Men don’t like nobility in woman. Not any men. I suppose it is because the men like to have the copyrights on nobility – if there is going to be anything like that in a relationship.
Money is only congealed snow.
I’ve finally gotten to the bottom of things.
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.
Benchley and I had an office in the old Life magazine that was so tiny, if it were an inch smaller it would have been adultery.
The cleverest woman on earth is the biggest fool on earth with a man.
Art is a form of catharsis.
Art is a form of catharsis, emotional release, purging, cleansing, purifying.
His books are exciting and powerful and – if I may filch the word from the booksy ones – pulsing.
This play John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln holds the season’s record, thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence, it ran just five performances too many.
Then if my friendships break and bend, There’s little need to cry The while I know that every foe Is faithful till I die.
There was a reason for the cost of those perfectly plain black dresses.
Her big heart did not, as is so sadly often the case, inhabit a big bosom.
I misremember who first was cruel enough to nurture the cocktail party into life. But perhaps it would be not too much to say, in fact it would be not enough to say, that it was not worth the trouble.
And I’ll stay off Verlaine too; he was always chasing Rimbauds.
Excuse me, everybody, I have to go to the bathroom. I really have to telephone, but I’m too embarrassed to say so.
He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight.
Three highballs, and I think I’m St. Francis of Assisi.
I know that there are things that never have been funny, and never will be. And I know that ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon.