In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

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 boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off.

I hung up. It was a good start, but it didn’t go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk.

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.

I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.

The tragedy of life, Howard, is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean. It will not happen to me.