The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.

She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.

The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.

I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess.

It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.

There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.

History is not a toboggan slide, but a road to be reconsidered and even retraced