I don't answer questions containing two or more unsupported assumptions..

The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized..

The incredible thing happens at the beginning of the story always, you notice, not the end. A Sherlock Holmes story is never a trick 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..

I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing..

Opinions, from experts, cost money..

What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature?.

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 manag….

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

Everything in a story should be credible..

There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living — cook books and detective stories..

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 ….

Man's brain, enlarged fortuitously, invented words in an ambitious attempt to learn how to think, only to have them usurped by his emotions. But we s….

Genius is fine for the ignition spark, but to get there someone has to see that the radiator doesn't leak and no tire is flat..

Wolfe was drinking beer and looking at pictures of snowflakes in a book someone had sent him from Czechoslovakia... ...Wolfe seemed absorbed in the p….

If your ego is in good shape you will pretend you're surprised if a National Chairman calls you to tell you his party wants to nominate you for Presi….

All my important decisions are made for me by my subconscious. My frontal lobes are just kidding themselves that they decide anything at all. All the….

The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote.

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..

One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbel….

Labels are for the things men make, not for men. The most primitive man is too complex to be labeled..