I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.

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.

It’s a trinity ring. Pink for love, yellow for fidelity and white for friendship. I liked the symbolism of three—you, me and baby-to-be.

I have never been quite sure who controls the weather. Although we always prayed for clear skies, I have had to preach in all kinds of storms.

It's hard to guess how smart the machines are, but a good rule of thumb is that they're always smarter than you think.

I was extremely aggressive from the start.

Cocooning is about insulation and avoidance, peace and protection, coziness and control - a sort of hyper-nesting.

We don't think of ourselves as a dynasty. I really hope some of my grandkids will be actively involved in politics.

The point is less what we choose than that we have the power to make a choice.

From every Englishman emanates a kind of gas, the deadly choke-damp of boredom.

What I was trying to construct was relative symmetry, where it seems clear that the shapes have arrived through consideration.

Our prison population quintupled in a thirty year period of time. Not doubled or tripled - quintupled. We went from a prison and jail population of about 300,000 to now more than 2 million.