Well, that was life. It was an old tree, and the old passed on. Probably they did not mind. There came a time when all sap ran slowly, and the peace of age with all things behind it merged easily into the peace of death. The difficult thing was to be young.

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 writer knows the terror of an unexpected success. How to carry on? How to repeat it?

Women are like dogs really. They love like dogs, a little insistently. And they like to fetch and carry and come back wistfully after hard words, and learn rather easily to carry a basket.

Politics is still the man's game. The women are allowed to do the chores, the dirty work, and now and then--but only occasionally--one is present at some secret conference or other. But it's not the rule. They can go out and get the vote, if they can and will; they can collect money, they can be grateful for being permitted to work. But that is all.

pretense is the oil that lubricates society.

Courage was America's watchword, but a courage of the body rather than of the soul - physical courage, not moral.