Sometimes it's things that take the joy out of life, like a blowout when you're hitting sixty or a button coming off of a shirt when you're in a hurry, but usually it's people.

War doesn't mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread.

I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it.

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.

To read of a detective's daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.

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.

A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.