“She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.” — Raymond Chandler

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

Woe, woe, woe... in a little while we shall all be dead. Therefore let us behave as though we were dead already.

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.