“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.”

“If I don't drive around the park,I'm pretty sure to make my mark.If I'm in bed each night by ten,I may get back my looks again,If I abstain from fun and such,I'll probably amount to much,But I shall stay the way I am,Because I do not give a damn…”

“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 sufficient champagne.Three be the things I shall have till I die:Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.”

“You don’t want a general houseworker, do you? Or a traveling companion, quiet, refined, speaks fluent French entirely in the present tense? Or an assistant billiard-maker? Or a private librarian? Or a lady car-washer? Because if you do, I should appreciate your giving me a trial at the job. Any minute now, I am going to become one of the Great Unemployed. I am about to leave literature flat on its face. I don’t want to review books any more. It cuts in too much on my reading.”

“Oh, seek, my love, your newer way;I'll not be left in sorrow.So long as I have yesterday,Go take your damned tomorrow!”

“Symptom RecitalI do not like my state of mind;I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.I hate my legs, I hate my hands,I do not yearn for lovelier lands.I dread the dawn's recurrent light;I hate to go to bed at night.I snoot at simple, earnest folk.I cannot take the gentlest joke.I find no peace in paint or type.My world is but a lot of tripe.I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.For what I think, I'd be arrested.I am not sick, I am not well.My quondam dreams are shot to hell.My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;I do not like me any more.I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.I ponder on the narrow house.I shudder at the thought of men....I'm due to fall in love again.”

“I think that I shall never knowWhy I am thus, and I am so.Around me, other girls inspireIn men the rush and roar of fire,The sweet transparency of glass,The tenderness of April grass,The durability of granite;But me- I don't know how to plan it.The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlockWere- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.They broke my heart, they stilled my song,And said they had to run along,Explaining, so to sop my tears,First came their parents or careers.But ever does experienceDeny me wisdom, calm, and sense!Though she's a fool who seeks to captureThe twenty-first fine, careless rapture,I must go on, till ends my rope,Who from my birth was cursed with hope.A heart in half is chaste, archaic;But mine resembles a mosaic-The thing's become ridiculous!Why am I so? Why am I thus?”