My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.

I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.

Never, never, never on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby food. Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want.

One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them.

Finders were keepers unless title was proven.

Dill if you don't hush I'll knock you bowlegged.

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.