Quotes from Edna Ferber

He sat looking down at his hands--his fine strong unscarred hands. Suddenly and unreasonably he thought of another pair of hands--his mother's--with the knuckles enlarged, the skin broken--expressive--her life written on them. Scars. She had them.

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.

I'm tired of hearing you men say that this and that and the other isn't woman's work. Any work is woman's work that a woman can do well.

AUTHORS SHOULD BE READ BUT NOT SEEN; RARELY ARE THEY A WINSOME SIGHT.

Death-bed promises should be broken as lightly as they are seriously made. -The Gay Old Dog

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.

No woman ought to pretend she's intelligent. And if she is she ought to have the intelligence to pretend she isn't.

Funny, isn't it, how your whole life goes by while you think you're only planning the way you're going to live it?

I suppose it is a gift, being young, but it isn't special. We've all got it, early in life.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death — fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.

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

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.

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.

The leading lady had a large and saving sense of humor. But there is nothing that blunts the sense of humor more quickly than a few months of one-night stands. Even O. Henry could have seen nothing funny about that room.

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

Anything can have happened in Oklahoma. Practically everything has.

Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great city at night, when a few million people within it are sleeping, or ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl car, and the roar of an occasional "L" train, and the hollow echo of the footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into description, and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has never been done satisfactorily.

What could be more exciting! As long as you're fascinated and as long as you keep on fighting the things you think are wrong, you're living. It isn't the evil people in the world who do the most harm. It's the sweet do-nothings that can destroy us.