As For Me, My Literary Theory, Like

I Go On Working For The Same Reason That A Hen Goes On Laying Eggs. There Is In Every Living Creature An Obscure But Powerful Impulse To Active Functioning. Life Demands To Be Lived. Inaction, Save As A Measure Of Recuperation Between Bursts Of Activity, Is Painful And Dangerous To The Healthy Organism- In Fact, It Is Almost Impossible. Only The Dying Can Be Really Idle.

When I Reach The Shades At Last It Will No Doubt Astonish Satan To Discover, On Thumbing My Dossier, That I Was A Member Of The Y.m.c.a.

A Woman Wishes To Mother A Man Simply Because She Sees Into His Helplessness, His Need Of An Amiable Environment, His Touching Self-delusion.

I Know Of No American Who Starts From A Higher Level Of Aspiration Than The Journalist. . . . He Plans To Be Both An Artist And A Moralist -- A Master Of Lovely Words And Merchant Of Sound Ideas. He Ends, Commonly, As The Most Depressing Jackass Of His Community -- That Is, If His Career Goes On To What Is Called A Success.

Life Without Sex Might Be Safer But It Would Be Unbearably Dull. It Is The Sex Instinct Which Makes Women Seem Beautiful, Which They Are Once In A Blue Moon, And Men Seem Wise And Brave, Which They Never Are At All. Throttle It, Denaturalize It, Take It Away, And Human Existence Would Be Reduced To The Prosaic, Laborious, Boresome, Imbecile Level Of Life In An Anthill.