It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.

Common sense is the guy who tells you that you ought to have had your brakes relined last week before you smashed a front end this week. Common sense is the Monday morning quarterback who could have won the ball game if he had been on the team. But he never is. He's high up in the stands with a flask on his hip. Common sense is the little man in a grey suit who never makes a mistake in addition. But it's always someone else's money he's adding up.

She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air.

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.

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

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.