I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.

Marriage, in my view, should be a balanced stalemate between equal adversaries.

Is is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments, even impertinent compliments. Especially impertinent compliments.

The approval of a cat cannot but flatter the recipient.

I had refused Emerson's well-meant offers of assistance, knowing his efforts would be confined to moving the furniture to the wrong places and demanding how much longer the process would take.

love has a very dulling effect on the brain

I have learned that particularly clever ideas do not always stand up under close scrutiny.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he said softly, "I love you, Mother." He took my hand and kissed it, and folded my fingers round the stem of the rose. He had stripped it of its thorns.

The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.

In the silence I heard Bastet, who had retreated under the bed, carrying on a mumbling, profane monologue. (If you ask how I knew it was profane, I presume you have never owned a cat.)

Any man with a grain of sense knows that marriage is the only way, these days, to acquire a full-time maid who works twenty-five hours a day, with no time off and no pay except room and board. (p9)

I don't want to be a tree

Discovery's friend is creativity

"The world is a wheel always turning " philosophized Mrs. Pelz. "Those who were high go down low and those who've been low go up higher."

Your rewards in life are in direct proportion to your service

An artist is like a woman who can do nothing but love, and who succumbs to every stray male jackass.

What a thrill. You know you've entered new territory when you realise that your outfit cost more than your film.

Clothing should be like food. There should never be a $5000 sweater. You know what should cost $5000? A car.

I'm having a great career, though I think I'm not as good as your little scenario makes me out to be.

Leave your ego, play the music, love the people.

I'm 26 years old, and I've spent my whole life waiting for something else to start. Now I realize that this is all there is, and I'm going to try to live my life like that.