Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all of the tricks and has nothing to say.

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.

I'm not a trash talker. I respect my opponents.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

Age 50 is a lot tougher than 40s

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

Elegance means appreciating things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners.

I believe in the potential of all things possibly imagined that can be made into a reality.

Nothing is less efficient than perfectionism.

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.

The Indian's intercourse with Nature is at least such as admits of the greatest independence of each.

the less one does, as I long ago observed, the less one can find time to do.