You usually can tell when a writer is going down hill by the size of his liquor bill.

I write of the wish that comes true--for some reason, a terrifying thought.

Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.

That's all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate.

I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort.

If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.

She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another.