�"I would like it to be said that I was a good writer of detective and thriller stories."

�"Companionship is not a thing one needs every day--it is a thing that grows upon one, and sometimes as destroying as ivy growing round you."

�"An ugly voice repels me where an ugly face would not."

�"The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering."

�"...any moment before the end might be the important one. This I believe."

�"If I was born once again, I would like to be a woman--always!"

�"An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her."

�"It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story."

�"...one cannot pretend that differences in income do not separate people. It is not a question of snobbishness or social position, it is whether you can afford to follow the pursuits that your friends are following."

�"Very few people really stimulate you with the things they say. And those are usually men. Men have much better brains than women, don't you think? So much more originality."

�"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness--to save oneself trouble."

�"The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes."

�"I do, after all, have a little experience with plots, dialogue, and knowing what audiences like, you know."

�"I myself always found the love interest a terrible bore in detective stories. Love, I felt, belonged to romantic stories. To force a love motif into what should be a scientific process went much against the grain."

�"I ... decided once and for all that it is no good thinking about real people--you must create your characters for yourself. Someone you see ... is a possible starting point, because you can make up something for yourself about them."

�"One's always a little self-conscious over the murderer's first appearance. He must never come in too late; that's uninteresting for the reader at the end of the book. And the d�nouement has to be worked out frightfully carefully."

�"I am willing to believe that [those who kill] are made that way, that they are born with a disability, for which, perhaps, one should pity them; but even then, I think, not spare them."

�"When I re-read those first [detective stories I wrote], I'm amazed at the number of servants drifting about. And nobody is really doing any work, they're always having tea on the lawn."

�"I am like a sausage machine. As soon as [I finish a novel] and cut off the string, I have to think of the next one."

�"Writing is a great comfort to people like me, who are unsure of themselves and have trouble expressing themselves properly."

�"One problem is that the interruptions are generally far more enjoyable than writing, and once you've stopped, it's exceedingly difficult to get started again."

�"There's no agony like [getting started]. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off."