You sharpen your ideas by reducing yourself to the level of the people you are with and a sense of humour and a complete relaxation, even when you're discussing serious things, does help to mobilise friends around you. And I love that.

First, of things relating to animals; secondly, of irrational creatures; thirdly of plants; fourthly, of ceremonies; fifthly, of manners; sixthly, of cases or edicts or quarrels; seventhly, of cases that are impossible in nature [paradoxes], as, for instance, of those things which, the more is taken from them, the more they grow. And reserve the great matters till the end, and the small matters give at the beginning.

I will not join any club who will take me as a member.

How awful the thought of oneness-the yoga idea. One merging into all and all merging into one. Just think of merging into Herbert Hoover.

Humor is the sublime wisdom of pity and tolerance in which man recognizes the utter futility of his own enterprise and importance.

All I need is the opportunity,' I said confidently. He smiled. 'Seventeen's very young, and you look even younger.' I shrugged off-handedly. 'That's a question of make-up.' Karno laughed. That shrug, he told Sydney later, got me the job.