The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.

Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.

Being broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe.

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene.

Sarcasm is not the rapier of wit its wielders seem to believe it to be, but merely a club: it may, by dint of brute force, occasionally raise bruises, but it never cuts or pierces.

The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.

I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it.

Taggle was absorbed in the meat pie. ‘It’s covered in BREAD, ’ he huffed. ‘What fool has covered MEAT with BREAD?

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

We are very focused this time and our preparation has been better. We maybe made one or two mistakes last time, but not this time.

I can remember loving to recruit. I knew I was going to do my best. But traveling and recruiting doesn't appeal to me any more. It's not as much fun as it used to be.

If you are any kind of an artist, then validation . . . can be a result, but you're going to do the work anyway.

The poet wants justice. And the poet wants art. In poetry we can't have one without the other.

It is only grown-ups who want children to be children; children themselves always want to be real people.

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible.

Most gods find it hard to walk and think at the same time.