The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.

The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment.

Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish.

The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.

The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right. To say goodbye is to die a little.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.