She was the music heard faintly on the edge of sound.

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

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

Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.

If you don't leave, I'll get somebody who will.

The challenge is to write about real things magically.

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.