“That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can’t say ‘No’ in any of them.”

Bewildered is the fox who lives to find that grapes beyond reach can be really sour.

You do what you can, and you do it because you should. But all you can do is all you can do.

Vice is nice, but liquor is quicker.

The writer’s way is rough and lonely, and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say, cleaning out ferryboats?

I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it.

You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.

I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money.

Friends come and go but I wouldn’t have thought you’d be one of them.

Don’t feel bad when I die; I’ve been dead for a long time.

I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending.

Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.

It was written without fear and without research.

This is me apologizing. I am a fool, a bird-brain, a liar and a horse-thief. I wouldn’t touch a superlative again with an umbrella.

What ever beauty may be it has for its basis order and for its essence unity Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

Said after she had been seriously ill: The doctors were very brave about it.

I’m not trying to stump anybody… it’s the beauty of the language that I’m interested in.

Sarcasm is the language of people whose emotions are dying.

You need a team that speaks your language.

The shorter and the plainer the better.

When I’m drafting right to life language, I don’t call up the nuns.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

We are facing an external attack against us, which is more dangerous than any other previous wars… We are dealing with those who are extremists, who only know the language of killing and criminality.

According to the United Nations’ latest count, of the approximately 3,000 languages spoken in the world today, only some 78 have a literature. Of those 78, a scant five or six enjoy a truly international audience.