When a great burden is lifted, the relief is not always felt at once. The galled places still ache.

... Washington was not only an important capital. It was a city of fear. Below that glittering and delightful surface there is another story, that of underpaid Government clerks, men and women holding desperately to work that some political pull may at any moment take from them. A city of men in office and clutching that office, and a city of struggle which the country never suspects.

my crime books are actually novels and are written as such. One might even say that each one is really two novels, one of which is the story I tell the reader, and the other the buried story I know and let slip now and then into a clue to whet the reader's interest.

Every crucial experience can be regarded either as a setback, or the start of a wonderful new adventure, it depends on your perspective!

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

That is the tragedy of growing old, Chris. You don't leave the world. It leaves you.

as all women know, there are really no men at all. There are grown-up boys, and middle-aged boys, and elderly boys, and even sometimes very old boys. But the essential difference is simply exterior. Your man is always a boy.