I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.

The world is changed not by the self-regarding, but by men and women prepared to make fools of themselves.

Death ... obliterates family resemblance as it does personality: there is no affinity between the living and the dead.

When I heard, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, I thought, Did he fall or was he pushed?

In 1930s mysteries, all sorts of motives were credible which aren't credible today, especially motives of preventing guilty sexual secrets from coming out. Nowadays, people sell their guilty sexual secrets.

Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you.

The secret of contentment is never to allow yourself to want anything which reason tells you you haven't a chance of getting.