One would think a writer would be happy here — if a writer is ever happy anywhere.

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.

We ought to pray persistently.

Doubt is like a thorn you can't get a hold on.

I have my television, my books and that becomes my little world.

Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life. A child is given to the universe to be educated.

He that distributeth not That which he hath received-- His food, his drink, his sustenance-- Unto devotee, brahman, beggar, wayfarer-- Such a low man as he, they say, is like Unto a lack of rain.

It is easier to make war than to make peace.

Death cannot put the brakes on a good dream.

Film acting is one of the only industries where you're criticized for working hard. In any other industry, it's considered a quality and something to behold.

One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it.

The sense of beauty is intuitive, and beauty itself is all that inspires pleasure without, and aloof from, and even contrarily to interest.