Wolfe was drinking beer and looking at pictures of snowflakes in a book someone had sent him from Czechoslovakia... ...Wolfe seemed absorbed in the pictures. Looking at him, I said to myself, "He's in a battle with the elements. He's fighting his way through a raging blizzard, just sitting there comfortably looking at pictures of snowflakes. That's the advantage of being an artist, of having imagination." I said aloud, "You mustn't go to sleep, sir, it's fatal. You freeze to death." The League of Frightened Men

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

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene.

The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote

A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality

If I'm home with no chore at hand, and a package of books has come, the television set and the chess board and the unanswered mail will have to manage without me if one of the books is a detective story.

I love to make a mistake. It is my only assurance that I cannot reasonably be expected to assume the responsibility of omniscience.