All my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just kidding themselves that they decide anything at all. All they do is think up reasons for the decisions that are already made.

You can't dance cheerfully. Dancing is too important. It can be wild or solemn or gay or lewd or art for art's sake, but it can't be cheerful.

War doesn't mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread.

As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.

I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.

The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote

If your ego is in good shape you will pretend you're surprised if a National Chairman calls you to tell you his party wants to nominate you for President of the United States, but you're not really surprised.