- It's easier to repent than to regret.
- Our tribe of songsmiths always wrote for our peers. We were very much ashamed of ourselves if we wrote anything clichéd, if we took an idea from another person. By 'our tribe' I'm talking about Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Hart, Dietz, all those people who got together every week, usually at George Gershwin's house. Something like Fleet Street in Samuel Johnson's time - an artistic community where people took fire from other people.
- I doubt that I can ever say 'I love you' head on. It's not the way I think. For me the task is never to say the thing directly, and yet to say it - to think in a curve, so to speak.
- Ira [Gershwin] was the shyest, most diffident boy we had ever known. In a class of lower east side rapscallions, his soft-spoken gentleness and low-keyed personality made him a lovable incongruity. He spoke in murmurs, hiding behind a pair of steel-rimmed glasses..Ira had a kid brother who wore high stiff collars, shirts with cuffs and went out with girls.
- [on 'The Wizard of Oz'] I loved the idea of having the freedom to do lyrics that were not just songs but scenes.
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