“Women and elephants never forget.”

Honesty means nothing until you are tested under circumstances where you are sure you could get away with dishonesty.

People ought to be one of two things, young or dead.

If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!

Constant use had not worn ragged the fabric of their friendship.

Where unwilling dies the rose; buds the new another year.

If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people He gives it to.

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

Should they whisper false of you, Never trouble to deny; Should the words they say be true, Weep and storm and say they lie.

The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires.

It turns out that, at social gatherings, as a source of entertainment, conviviality, and good fun, I rank somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate.

If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.

I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.

The only “ism” Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.

I can’t write five words but that I change seven.

The best part is coming. What’s the best part? You swallowing an entire cow whole? No. That’s the finale.

Usually, I’m only sad when something sad happens. I am not a melancholic person. I like to live very much in the present. If I was an animal, I’d be a little cat. They like to live life.

I stayed in show business to pay for my animal business.

I’m in the middle of my sixth book, which is about animals at the Los Angeles Zoo.

There is no more reason to believe that man descended from an inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage.

You know what the problem that animal activists sometimes have? They only concentrate on the heartbreaking things to the point where the general public thinks, ‘Oh, here comes those animal folks again and I’m going to hear all the things I don’t want to hear.’

Animals don’t lie. Animals don’t criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.

I secretly want to be a zebra. That is why I always wear stripes.