Edna Ferber

“It's terrible to realize you don't learn how to live until you're ready to die, and then it's too late.”

“Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death.”

“A writer's working hours are his waking hours. He is working as long as he is conscious and frequently when he isn't.”

“A closed mind is a dying mind.”

“It sounds so far away and different. I like different places. I like any places that isn't here.”

“Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little.”

“Books should be cherished, like children, books are for the next generation, like children, like history.”

“Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.”

“I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice--they all make fine fuel.”

“A woman can look both moral and exciting... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.”

“Big doesn't necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren't better than violets.”

“That just goes to show, remarked Pearlie, that you must never judge a woman in a kimono or a bathing suit.”

“[She had] a gay adventuresome spirit that was never to die, though it led her into curious places and she often found, at the end, only a trackless waste from which she had to retrace her steps painfully. But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and porphyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”

“Any garment which is cut to fit you is much more becoming, even if it is not so splendid as a garment which has been cut to fit somebody not of your stature.”

“Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.”

“Living the past is a dull and lonely business; looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.”

“Roast beef, medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy.”

“But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”

“Where are you going this hot day, Mis’ DeJong?”Selina sat up very straight. “To Bagdad, Mrs. Pool.”“To — Where’s that? What for?”“To sell my jewels, Mrs. Pool. And to see Aladdin, and Harun-al-Rashid and Ali Baba. And the Forty Thieves.”Mrs. Pool had left her rocker and had come down the steps. The wagon creaked on past her gate. She took a step or two down the path, and called after them. “I never heard of it. Bag — How do you get there?”Over her shoulder Selina called out from the wagon seat. “You just go until you come to a closed door. And you say ‘Open Sesame!’ and there you are.”Bewilderment shadowed Mrs. Pool’s placid face. As the wagon lurched on down the road it was Selina who was smiling and Mrs. Pool who was serious.The boy, round eyed, was looking up at his mother. “That’s out of Arabian Nights, what you said. Why did you say that?” Suddenly excitement tinged his voice. “That’s out of the book. Isn’t it? Isn’t it! We’re not really ——”She was a little contrite, but not very. “Well, not really, perhaps. But ’most any place is Bagdad if you don’t know what will happen in it. And this is an adventure, isn’t it, that we’re going on? People in disguise in the Haymarket. Caliphs, and princes, and slaves, and thieves, and good fairies, and witches.”“In the Haymarket! That Pop went to all the time! That is just dumb talk.”

“If American politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there's something wrong with American politics.”