A guest is a jewel on the cushion of hospitality

As I understand it, a born executive is a guy who, when anything difficult or unexpected happens, yells for somebody to come and help him.

The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.

I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn't have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you're guilty you'll get it in the neck and if you're innocent you can't possibly be harmed. No matter who you are.

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

A Dickens character to me is a theatrical projection of a character. Not that it isn't real. It's real, but in that removed sense. But Sherlock Holmes is simply there. I would be astonished if I went to 221½ B Baker Street and didn't find him.

God made you and me, in certain respects, quite unequal, and it would be futile to try any interference with His arrangements.