A check girl in peach-bloom Chinese pajamas came over to take my hat and disapprove of my clothes. She had eyes like strange sins.

When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it stays split.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid

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

Some are able and humane men and some are low-grade individuals with the morals of a goat, the artistic integrity of a slot machine, and the manners of a floorwalker with delusions of grandeur.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

There are two kinds of truth; The truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The fist of these is science and the second is art.

It seemed like a nice neighborhood to have bad habits in.

The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

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

The camera guys can't mess up. God bless them, they hardly ever do. But they literally don't know what's going to happen next. None of us do. And it all has to come together and be funny.

He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.

There have been linkages between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda going back more or less a decade.

We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.

Our plan is to struggle against terrorism and have security for the country and help draft a democratic constitution as soon as possible.

Painting to me is constant searching. I can see what I want, but I can't get there, and yet you have to be open enough that if it goes another way, then let it go that way.

If you give me enough time, enough leash, I can become pretty reasonable.

We want to put a stop to tax havens. We want results on this, with a list of tax havens and a series of consequences.

It is the population which decides when it's time for a leader to leave, not foreign powers.