Crime fiction "confirms our belief, despite some evidence to the contrary, that we live in a rational, comprehensible, and moral universe.

Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.

It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed.

She was a buxom grandmother noted for her detective stories, who gazed mournfully at the camera as if deploring either the bloodiness of her craft or the size of her advance.

It is interesting how often unintelligent, even stupid, women manage their emotional lives more satisfactorily than do their cleverer sisters.

It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.