Sometimes I feel sure he is as mad as a hatter and then, just as he is at his maddest, I find there is a method in his madness.

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.

I specialize in murders of quiet, domestic interest.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

Never worry about what you say to a man. They're so conceited that they never believe you mean it if it's unflattering.

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

We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness either enforced or voluntary.