Dashiell Hammett took murder out of theVenetian vase and dropped it into the alley.
There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent.
A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.
I found after seventy years that I was not a lunatic but a moron. . . . I should have been able to do better.
I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown.
A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression.
It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse.
For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world.
I felt that God could be realized only through service. And service for me was the service of India, because it came to me without my seeking, because I had an aptitude for it.
He gave me something that day. . . something I wanted to protect. And when it was taken from me I learned how small I was. I vowed to never again care for someone so much, I couldn't bear to lose them.
the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end