Raymond Chandler

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

A really good detective never gets married.

A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled.

The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off.

I'd date someone younger or older; age doesn't matter to me. Or looks, really - it's all about maturity.

The queen of crime, Agatha Christie, was always more concerned about the clockwork cleverness of the plot, never the investigator.