I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.

Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to solve a problem.

The girl gave him a look which ought to have stuck at least four inches out of his back.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid