The most durable thing in writing is style. It is a projection of personality and you have to have a personality before you can project it. It is the product of emotion and perception.

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

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.

But nothing seems to do any good.

Most people go through life using up half their energy trying to protect a dignity they never had

Let us never accept the point of view that mysteries are written by hacks. The poorest of us shed our blood over every chapter. The best of us start from scratch with every new book.

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