What a bonanza! An unknown beginner to be directed by Lubitsch, in a script by Wilder and Brackett, and to play with Paramount's two superstars, Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert, and to be beaten up by both of them!

If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.

The public demands certainties; it must be told definitely and a bit raucously that this is true and that is false. But there are no certainties.

Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long.

In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart.

According to my best recollection, I don't remember.

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illus

The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.

She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.

The only alliance I would make with the Women's Liberation Movement is in bed.

"I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!"

The distinction between Freedom and Liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have been unable to find a living specimen of either.

The tree in which the sap is stagnant remains fruitless.

To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness.

How is the world ruled, and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists, and they believe what they read.

For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into a hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate.

It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.

There is no cure for birth and death other than to enjoy the interval.

How should they answer?

When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay y

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.

... we must not judge the society of the future by considering whether or not we should like to live in it; the question is whether those who have grown up in it will be happier than those who have grown up in our society or those of the past.

It seems to me that nearly every woman I know wants a man who knows how to love with authority. Women are simple souls who like simple things, and one of the simplest is one of the simplest to give. ... Our family airedale will come clear across t

Satire is tragedy plus time.

As to Jesus of Nazareth... I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissent

A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks.

After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box.

The course of true anything never does run smooth.

If you know the answer to a question, don't ask.

Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future.

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

Real wealth can only increase.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear.

You can bring men from other parts of the world who are sane. And you know what happens? At the very moment they cross those mountains... they go mad. Instantaneously and automatically, at the very moment they cross the mountains into California,

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.

But you shall not escape my iambics.

I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting. I shall fall, Like a bright exhalation in the evening And no man see me more.

"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts."

Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely.

Take your work seriously but never take yourself seriously; and do not take what happens either to yourself or your work seriously.

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

A committee takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom.

Politicians speak for their parties, and parties never are, never have been, and never will be wrong.

"There is no Father Christmas. It's just a marketing ploy to make low income parents' lives a misery." "... I want you to picture the trusting face of a child, streaked with tears because of what you just said." "I want you to picture the face of

Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years.

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

It is up to us to produce better-quality movies.

The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.

For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented hell.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

I understand why you're confused. You're thinking too much.

All phone calls are obscene.

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.

Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past.

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

"I'd like to start a new religion. One that doesn't use a dead young man as its logo."

If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would all be millionaires.

Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?" Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO inconsiderate."

The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.

If God wanted us to have a President, He would have sent us a candidate.

All Gods were immortal.

When you say that you agree to a thing in principle, you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.

Monterey... is decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place in California ... [it] is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling of all sorts, fandangos, and various kinds of amusements and knavery.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Never promise more than you can perform.

You can't run away forever, But there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long.

One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to represent a creative meeting, and the ratio c

In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!"

It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion.

I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.

"If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far."

Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?

I think we are in Rats' Alley where the dead men lost their bones.

Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian. [...] To him is ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia

My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked.

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.

If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?

... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If somebody gets handed a name like "H.

I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy

One picture is worth more than ten thousand words.

Your chances of getting hit by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say, "Storms suck!"

We have art that we do not die of the truth.

The superfluous is very necessary.

My father was a saint, I'm not.

Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.

Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are.

... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish.

In the first place, God made idiots; this was for practice; then he made school boards.

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not c

History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names.

There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.

When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.

If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't say embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and y

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.

At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all my soul. At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my ignorance upon the shore.

"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me Deadpan Allie and lie.

There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion.

What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

If Karl, instead of writing a lot about Capital, had made a lot of Capital, it would have been much better.

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.