The very rich and the very social are, often, the very stuffy. Edna Ferber More Quotes by Edna Ferber More Quotes From Edna Ferber When a new post-war generation has grown to puberty and to youth and to manhood and womanhood, it should read, and it should be realistically told, of the futility, the idiocy, the utter depravity of war. For that matter, this instruction could begin at the age of six with the taking of those toy guns out of those toy holsters and throwing them in the ash-cans where they belong. Edna Ferber gun age war Any man who can look handsome in a dirty baseball suit is an Adonis. There is something about the baggy pants, and the Micawber-shaped collar, and the skull-fitting cap, and the foot or so of tan, or blue, or pink undershirt sleeve sticking out at the arms, that just naturally kills a man's best points. Edna Ferber baseball men dirty writers of novels are so busy being solitary that they haven't time to meet one another. But then, a writer learns nothing from a writer, conversationally. If a writer has anything witty, profound or quotable to say he doesn't say it. He's no fool. He writes it. Edna Ferber writing witty profound Imported actors, like certain wines, sometimes do not stand the ocean trip. This can be as true of American actors in Europe as it is of European actors in America. Edna Ferber ocean wine europe I sat staring up at a shelf in my workroom from which thirty-one books identically dressed in neat dark green leather stared back at me with a sort of cold hostility like children who resent their parents. Don't stare at us like that! they said. Don't blame us if we didn't turn out to be the perfection you expected. We didn't ask to be brought into the world. Edna Ferber dark book children Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Edna Ferber climbing mountain writing Your idea of bliss is to wake up on a Monday morning knowing you haven't a single engagement for the entire week. You are cradled in a white paper cocoon tied up with typewriter ribbon. Edna Ferber typewriters monday morning To be alive is a fine thing. It is the finest thing in the world, though hazardous. It is a unique thing. It happens only once in a lifetime. To be alive, to know consciously that you are alive, and to relish that knowledge -- this is a kind of magic. Or it may be a kind of madness, exhilarating but harmless. Edna Ferber once-in-a-lifetime magic unique Does one eat peanuts at a ball game?' 'It ain't hardly legal if you don't. Edna Ferber baseball games doe I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Edna Ferber writing order thinking A story must simmer in its own juice for months or even years before it's ready to serve. Edna Ferber juice inspirational years Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt. Edna Ferber marriage stars hurt People permit life to slide past them like a deft pickpocket, their purse-not yet missed and now too late-in his hand. Edna Ferber life hands past There are two ways of doing battle against Disgrace. You may live it down; or you may run away from it and hide. The first method is heart-breaking, but sure. The second cannot be relied upon because of the uncomfortable way Disgrace has of turning up at your heels. Edna Ferber heart running two Now gae your wa'sTho'anes as gude As ever happit flesh and blude, Yet part we maunthe case sae hard is, Amang the writers and the bardies That lang they'll brook the auld I trow, Or neibours cry,'Weel brook the new'. Edna Ferber sae cry flesh Texas history is a varied, tempestuous, and vast as the state itself. Texas yesterday is unbelievable, but no more incredible than Texas today. Today's Texas is exhilarating, exasperating, violent, charming, horrible, delightful, alive. Edna Ferber texas alive yesterday A woman can look book moral and exciting ... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle. Edna Ferber Living in the past is a dull and lonely business looking back strains the neck muscles, causes you to bump into people not going your way. Edna Ferber Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth... But amusing Never. Edna Ferber Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death. Edna Ferber writing love life death