They don't want you until you have made a name, and by the time you have made a name, you have developed some kind of talent they can't use. All they will do is spoil it, if you let them.

There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.

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

The streets were dark with something more then night.

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.

There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren't as good as others.

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.