I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.

However toplofty and idealistic a man may be, he can always rationalize his right to earn money.

Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year.

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 coffee shop smell was strong enough to build a garage on.

Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.

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