The mystery story is two stories in one: the story of what happened and the story of what appeared to happen.

having considerable mind, changing it became almost as ponderous an operation as moving a barn, although not nearly so stable.

A cat and a Bible, and nobody needs to be lonely.

Of one thing the reader can be certain: the more easily anything reads, the harder it has been to write.

War is not two great armies meeting in the clash and frenzy of battle. War is a boy being carried on a stretcher, looking up at God’s blue sky with bewildered eyes that are soon to close; war is a woman carrying a child that has been injured by a shell; war is spirited horses tied in burning buildings and waiting for death; war is the flower of a race, battered, hungry, bleeding, up to its knees in filthy water; war is an old woman burning a candle before the Mater Dolorsa for the son she has given.

there is something shameful about the death of a play. It does not die with pity, but contempt. A book may fail, but who is there to know it? It dies and is buried, and is decently interred on the bookseller's shelf; but the play dies to laughter, to scorn and disdain.

There is nothing for the modern man or woman to fear about most cases of cancer. Nothing except delay.