I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.

Bankhead frames her everyday aversions as “phobias,” turning self-knowledge into performance. The comic triad—dreading bedtime, morning, and solitude—suggests a temperament driven by stimulation and company, consistent with her public persona as a flamboyant, nightlife-loving stage star. The line’s wit hinges on the paradox that removing these anxieties would make life “slick as a sonnet” (smooth, orderly, aesthetically neat) yet “dull as ditch water” (lifeless). In other words, her restlessness and fear of being alone are presented as the very engines of her vitality: the flaws that complicate life also keep it vivid, social, and dramatic.