To read of a detective's daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.

As a professional writer of detective stories, I string along with the ballplayers. I love a ball game.

If I'm home with no chore at hand, and a package of books has come, the television set and the chess board and the unanswered mail will have to manage without me if one of the books is a detective story.

...it is our good fortune that the exigencies of birth and training furnish all of us with the opportunities for snobbery.

In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.

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