You've got forever; and somehow you can't do much with it. You've got forever; and it's a mile wide and an inch deep and full of alligators.

We're living in a funny world kid, a peculiar civilization. The police are playing crooks in it, and the crooks are doing police duty. The politicians are preachers, and the preachers are politicians. The tax collectors collect for themselves. The Bad People want us to have more dough, and the good people are fighting to keep it from us. It's not good for us, know what I mean? If we had all we wanted to eat, we'd eat too much. We'd have inflation in the toilet paper industry. That's the way I understand it. That's about the size of some of the arguments I've heard.

When life attains a crisis, man’s focus narrows. […] The world becomes a stage of immediate concern, swept free of illusion.

I found out long ago that the place where the law is apt to be abused the most is right around a courthouse.

There are thirty-two ways to write a story, and I’ve used every one, but there is only one plot – things are not as they seem.

If the Good Lord made a mistake in us people it was in making us want to live when we’ve got the least excuse for it.

You can't stamp on a man's corns when he's got his feet cut off.