“Middle age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you.”

“Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.”

“Senescence begins And middle-age ends The day your descendants Outnumber your friends”

“There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,Because I think that is sort of sweet;No, I object to one kind of apology alone,Which is when people spend their time and yours apologizing for everything they own.You go to their house for a meal,And they apologize because the anchovies aren't caviar or the partridge is veal;They apologize privately for the crudeness of the other guests,And they apologize publicly for their wife's housekeeping or their husband's jests;If they give you a book by Dickens they apologize because it isn't by Scott,And if they take you to the theater, they apologize for the acting and the dialogue and the plot;They contain more milk of human kindness than the most capacious diary can,But if you are from out of town they apologize for everything local and if you are a foreigner they apologize for everything American.I dread these apologizers even as I am depicting them,I shudder as I think of the hours that must be spend in contradicting them,Because you are very rude if you let them emerge from an argument victorious,And when they say something of theirs is awful, it is your duty to convince them politely that it is magnificent and glorious,And what particularly bores me with them,Is that half the time you have to politely contradict them when you rudely agree with them,So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf,Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.”

“Unwillingly Miranda wakes,Feels the sun with terror,One unwilling step she takes,Shuddering to the mirror.Miranda in Miranda's sightIs old and gray and dirty;Twenty-nine she was last night;This morning she is thirty.Shining like the morning star,Like the twilight shining,Haunted by a calendar,Miranda is a-pining.Silly girl, silver girl,Draw the mirror toward you;Time who makes the years to whirlAdorned as he adored you.Time is timelessness for you;Calendars for the human;What's a year, or thirty, toLoveliness made woman?Oh, Night will not see thirty again,Yet soft her wing, Miranda;Pick up your glass and tell me, then--How old is Spring, Miranda?”

“Man is a victim of dopeIn the incurable form of hope!”

“More than a catbird hates a cat,Or a criminal hates a clue,Or the Axis hates the United States,That's how much I love you.I love you more than a duck can swim,And more than a grapefruit squirts,I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,And more than a toothache hurts.As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,Or a juggler hates a shove,As a hostess detests unexpected guests,That's how much you I love.I love you more than a wasp can sting,And more than the subway jerks,I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,And more than a hangnail irks.I swear to you by the stars above,And below, if such there be,As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,That's how you're loved by me.”