When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average -- or only slightly above average -- detective story does.... Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way.

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.

The challenge is to write about real things magically.

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.

I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble.