The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.

We are all vainer of our luck than of our merits.

The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote

I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Have you ever seen a murder story printed in Singhalese? Wow!

In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.

I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself.

It is always wiser, where there is a choice, to trust inertia. It is the greatest force in the world.