Subtlety chases the obvious up a never-ending spiral and never quite catches it..

I'm not a collector. I don't keep letters, or books, or souvenirs. But I do keep one copy of each translation of my books into a foreign language. Ha….

No man was ever taken to hell by a woman unless he already had a ticket in his pocket..

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 Holme….

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books..

There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions - is he tall, is he short? -….

I understand the technique of eccentricity; it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the sli….

I have a strong moral sense - by my standards..

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

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up..

No man should tell a lie unless he is shrewd enough to recognize the time for renouncing it, if and when it comes, and knows how to renounce it grace….

What the tongue has promised, the body must submit to..

The brain can be hoodwinked but not the stomach..

One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years is that there's always some reason to live another year. And I'd like to live another ye….

A man may debar nonsense from his library of reason, but not from the arena of his impulses..

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene..

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

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

I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know. (Nero Wolfe).

The trouble with an alarm clock is that what seems sensible when you set it seems absurd when it goes off.

MY rule is never to be rude to anyone unless you mean it..