Quotes

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

On one issue, at least, both men and women agree; they both distrust women.

Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband's clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.

One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing.

Something somehow discreditable to someone. [on Truth]

The theory that the common people know what's good for them, and deserve to get it good and hard. [on Democracy]

The movies languish as a fine art because the men who determine what is to get into them haven't the slightest visible notion that such a thing as a fine art exists.

When women kiss, it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands.

No one... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

[on Rudolph Valentino] He was essentially a highly respectable young man; his predicament touched me. Here was one who was catnip to women, he had youth and fame, and yet he was very unhappy.

A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.

[on his 72nd birthday] Well, I'm ready for the angels.

The instant I reach Heaven, I'm going to speak to God very sharply.

[on his wife's death] It was a beautiful adventure while it lasted. Now I feel completely dashed and dismayed...What a cruel and idiotic universe we live in!

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered. There is only an error to be exposed.

A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.

The trouble about fighting for human freedom is that you have to spend much of your life defending sons of bitches: for oppressive laws are always aimed at them originally.

The purpose of practical politics is to menace the populace into a state of perpetual alarm-and thus always clamorous to be led to safety-with a series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.