“To ask Norma Keating to be anything except Norma Keating would be ridiculous.”

Affirming that an artist must be judged as an individual · Introduction to Giants and Dwarves, 1946

• Art
• Identity

“My best friends have been nearly always stenographers, thieves, sailors, chauffeurs, shop-girls, lawyers, manicurists and humble students.”

Valuing companionship beyond fashionable literary society · Letter to Burton Rascoe, New York Tribune, 1922

• Friendship
• Society

“I was born without your talent for bootlicking.”

A barbed declaration of independence from literary ingratiation · Conversation with Ben Hecht, as recalled

• Fame
• Truth