The challenge is to write about real things magically.

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.

Like mother like daughter.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

I'm not an actress, you know. I don't know what's going on. And I'm supposed to be the villain.

Small steps to the madhouse still get us there at last

There are spaces of sorrow only God can touch.

I don't have a problem with drugs, I have a problem with policemen.

There is no greater pleasure than having a dog. And that's a scientific fact!

The how-to is all about day in, day out finding a way to feed the monster, the drive that lives inside.

Leo's biggest surprise: One look from Jason, and all three of them knew the game plan. When had that happened, that they could read each other so well?

Those who can least bear a jest upon themselves, will be most diverted with one passed on others.