To literary critics a book is assumed to be guilty until it proves itself innocent.

Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.

When we get more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer is by cutting off those who don't have enough.

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.

A book, a true book, is the writer's confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings.

Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.

... Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.

For the masses who do the city's labor also keep the city's heart.

Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

The smaller the creature, the bolder its spirit.

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.

Every July, I look forward to taping a Christmas show - in July in Nashville. In 98-degree weather. I love it.

Yes, free markets tend to produce unequal incomes. We should not be ashamed of that. On the contrary, our system is the envy of the world and should be a source of pride.

I cannot even remember a time before being conscious of James Bond.

As the arteries grow hard, the heart grows soft.

There's no changing your mind about whom you love. That's part of the tough thing about being in love - it's sort of undeniable.

Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are.

In medical practice, there are few surgical procedures given so little attention and so underrated in its potential hazard as abortion.