I will ride my luck on occasion, but I like to pick the occasion.
I love books, food, music, sleep, people who work, heated arguments, the United States of America, and my wife and children. I dislike politicians, preachers, genteel persons, people who do not work or are on vacation, closed minds, movies, loud noises, and oiliness.
Afraid? I can dodge folly without backing into fear.
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? - he had better quit.
Dignities are like faces; no two are the same.
The fricassee with dumplings is made by a Mrs. Miller whose husband has left her four times on account of her disposition and returned four times on account of her cooking.
War doesn't mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread.
To say that a man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.
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.
To read of a detective's daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.
As between the intolerable and the merely distasteful, I must choose the latter.
The requisitions of the income tax have added greatly to the attractions of mercenary crime.
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.
As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.
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.
A schedule broken at will becomes a mere procession of vagaries.
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.
Every book takes me from 35 to 41 days to write. I don't know why that is. I've tried to get it down to 30 or 31, depending on the length of the month, but it won't work. I don't drink while I'm writing because it fuddles my logical processes, but when I finish a book I go down to the kitchen and pour myself a big belt.
Opinions, from experts, cost money.
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 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 slightest provocation to revert to normal action.
Bosh. I find a rival - but no, I won't flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner - I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you.
Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.
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 year so that Nixon won't be President. If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years.
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