What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.

Metaphysical speculation is about as pointless as a discussion on the meaning of one's lungs. They're for breathing.

Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.

It shows considerable wisdom to know what you want in life and then to direct all your energies towards getting it.

Don't just plan to write - write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.

I am fifty years old and I have never known what it is to love. I can write those words, know them to be true, but feel only the regret that a tone-deaf man must feel because he can't appreicate music, a regret less keen because it is for something never known, not for something lost.

Most of my life I have needed more time to be on my own.