When there's trouble in a family, it tends to show up in the weakest member. And all the other members of the family know that. They make allowances for the one in trouble.

I have a secret passion for mercy. . . but justice is what keeps happening to people.

Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.

The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure.

The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world of disasters.

There are certain families whose members should all live in different towns - different states, if possible - and write each other letters once a year.

Hell lies at the bottom of the human heart.

The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present.

Freud was one of the greatest influences on me. He made myth into psychiatry, and I've been trying to turn it back into myth again.

An ugly woman with a gun is a terrible thing.

As a man gets older, if he knows what is good for him,, the women he likes are getting older too. The trouble is that most of them are married.

Yet some there be that by due steps aspireTo lay their just hands on that golden keyThat opes the palace of Eternity.To such my errand is

The road to success is very tough, but your mind is tougher.

Great men look greater than yesterday.

Reward theory. Some people just aren't worth your tears.

Believe it or not, Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good.

A skyscraper is a machine that makes the land pay.

Know everything you can about what you're doing

There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success.

Spiral minds are harder to twist.

Giving a politician access to your wallet is like giving a dog access to your refrigerator.