Above all never forget that a marriage is in one way very much like a newspaper. It has to be made fresh every damn day of every damn year.

The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.

The moment a man begins to talk about technique that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas.

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.

One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.

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.

Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men.