I suppose that we are only young, Chris, so long as we can forget. After that we merely remember!

the calm of a place like Bellwood is the peace of death without the hope of resurrection.

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

I suppose there is something in all of us that harks back to the soil. When you come to think of it, what are picnics but outcroppings of instinct? No one really enjoys them or expects to enjoy them, but with the first warm days some prehistoric instinct takes us out into the woods, to fry potatoes over a strangling wood fire or spend the next week getting grass stains out of our clothes. It must be instinct; every atom of intelligence warns us to stay at home near the refrigerator.

[On fishing:] Greatest rest in the world for the brain.

I had a vision ... of being found on the pavement by some passerby, with a small punctuation mark ending my sentence of life.

Useless as a pulled tooth.