There's no agony like [getting started]. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off.

Surfing is like that. You are either vigorously cursing or else you are idiotically pleased with yourself.

you cannot give to people what they are incapable of receiving.

There hung about her the restrained energy of a whiplash.

"Look here," I said, "people like to collect disasters."

The truth often does sound unconvincing.

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.