It is not a fragrant world.

The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.

It was a cool day and very clear. You could see a long way-but not as far as Velma had gone.

I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.

I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again.

Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish.

A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.