“The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.”

“People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.”

“I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.”

“Why, man alive, Laura! Just look about you a little. What do you see? A world full of common people! All of 'em born and all of em' going to die! Which of them has one-tenth of your good points! Or mine! Or anyone else's, as far as that goes - gosh! Everybody excels in some one thing. Some in many!”

“But nothing happened there now of a nature to provoke a disturbance. There were no complaints to the management or the police, and the dark glory of the upper galleries was a legend in such memories as that of the late Emiel Kroger and the present Pablo Gonzales, and one by one, of course, those memories died out and the legend died out with them. Places like the Joy Rio and the legends about them make one more than usually aware of the short bloom and the long fading out of things. ("The Mysteries of the Joy Rio")”

“Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?”

“And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this-kitchen-candle...”