I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance.

A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Where there is no imagination there is no horror.

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

When the impossible has been eliminated, all that remains no matter how improbable is possible.

Why were girls in such a hurry to grow up? Agatha would never understand. Childhood was magical. Leaving it behind was a magnificent loss.

Even when I was young and content and thought life would bring good things for me and mine, I didn't believe in miracles.

Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven't courage you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

But certainly, for us who understand life, figures are a matter of indifference.

life's best balm - Forgetfulness!

One tends to overlook the fact that all during the 30's and actually during the late 40's I was a highly successful writer and a great many properties accumulated during that period of time.

Later on when it became a routine it was not as exciting I'll admit that. The first three years were wonderful, the rest were just money making and having fun.

There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil; to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.

Even at my peak, I never went too over the top.

I'm from Oklahoma. I mean, you can't have good hair in Oklahoma. That's why everyone wears hats. The wind just messes it up.