There is only one object on earth that frightens me: a physicist working on a new trick.

One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled.

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.

The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.

Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water.

Subtlety chases the obvious up a never-ending spiral and never quite catches it.