“she thought that 9Am was in the middle of the night”

“Oh, darling, you know we writers must occasionally stretch a point to heighten the dramatic situation. ”

“Why darling, I'm your Auntie Mame!”

“Daddy always said that Christmas is a joyous season when suicides and holdups and shoplifting and like that reach a new high and that the best place to spend the whole thing is a Moslem country.”

“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind. ”

“Teddy laughed, heard the sound of it carry off on the sweep of night air and dissolve in the distant surf, as if it had never been, as if the island and the sea and the salt took what you thought you had and...”

“Too much thought is bad for the soul, for art, and for crime. It is also a sign of middle age.”