I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know. (Nero Wolfe)

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

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

Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for.

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

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.

Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has made to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.