The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.

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

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

Everyone has something they don't want anyone to see; that is one of the functions of a home, to provide a spot to keep such things.

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.

A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.

I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.