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

Doyle stokes in a thousand shrewd touches with no effort at all. Wonderful.

I still can't decide which is more fun - reading or writing.

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

One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled.

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

Everything in a story should be credible.

The Glass Key is better than anything Hemingway ever wrote.

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.

Hemingway never grew out of adolescence. His scope and depth stayed shallow because he had no idea what women are for.

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene.

I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself.

To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man's decisions are based on his rational process. That I don't believe at all.

A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.

I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up.

The minute those two little particles inside a woman's womb have joined together, billions of decisions have been made. A thing like that has to come from entropy.

I think one or two of the later Holmes stories are among the best.

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

To read of a detectives daring finesse or ingenious stratagem is a rare joy.

Dignities are like faces no two are the same.

The constant petty behests of life permit few opportunities for major satisfactions, and when one is offered it should be seized.

What the tongue has promised, the body must submit to.

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion.

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.

This joy of discovery is real, and it is one of our rewards. So too is the approval of our work by our peers.

Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.

Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.

And the goal really is to make the audience laugh, to bring them some joy.

Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

Who promised you that only for joy were you brought to this earth?

It's the sense of what family is at the dinner table. It was the joy of knowing mother was in the kitchen making our favorite dish. I wish more people would do this and recall the joy of life.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.

You all know that I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces - my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope. These graces have carried me through difficult times and they have brought more joy to the good times than I ever could have imagined.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

We never taste a perfect joy; our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.

There are a lot of other things in this world that can and will bring me joy. Acting is one of them.

Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?'

Love begets love. This torment is my joy.