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.

it's been my experience that the first few days of married life women are blind because they want to be and after that because they have to be.

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

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.

I suppose it is because woman's courage is mental and man's physical, that in times of great strain women always make the better showing.

[On the Irish:] Strange race ... Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil.

when knowledge comes in at the door, fear and superstition fly out of the window.