The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that can produce the art….

He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus. I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it….

The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has..

Dames lie about anything - just for practice..

Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itsel….

They don't want you until you have made a name, and by the time you have made a name, you have developed some kind of talent they can't use. All they….

I suppose all writers are crazy, but if they are any good, I believe they have a terrible honesty..

Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the….

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer.….

And the commercials would have sickened a goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles..

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published. The average -….

Show me a man or woman who cannot stand mysteries and I will show you a fool, a clever fool - perhaps - but a fool just the same..

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency..

But nothing seems to do any good..

The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love..

Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds..

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts..

The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the on….

Tall, aren't you?" she said. "I didn't mean to be." Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance….

He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food..

All reading for pleasure is entertainment..