As a teenager you are in the last stage of life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.

Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks -- chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.

Don't bother discussing sex with small children. They rarely have anything to add.

Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable expectations and eventual disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around the room with royal-blue chickens.

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.

Humility is no substitute for a good personality.

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater... suggest that he wear a tail.

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.

If you're going to America, bring your own food.

If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies.

I must take issue with the term 'a mere child,' for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.

I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota.

I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.

No animal should ever jump up on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to suggest that each is unique -- no two alike. This is quite patently not the case. People ... are simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariable and lamentable tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush.

Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

The phone rings. I am not amused. This is not my favorite way to wake up. My favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature I had better ring for breakfast. This occurs rather less often than one might wish.

There are so many alcoholic writers because if you have to be face to face with yourself, it is best if one of you is drunk.

You can't change your mind -- you know, and say, this isn't working out, let's sell. (About mothering)

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.