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.

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

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.

I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.

There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.