12 Quotes by Ellery Queen

He was startled, but there was that about him which made it impossible to show what he felt, an instant and utter reflex of stillness to counteract all outward evidence of surprise, fear, anything.

It was wrong. It was like arresting the gun for murder.

Now, Jehovah, Yahweh, was a member of no Trinity, was represented by no lambs, suffered no little children. He was an almighty vindictive deity. He meddled in individual lives. And He was always right because He was.

If it pains you to discover that a Nice Man can be a crumbum, Tom, it's life you've got to object to, not Percy in particular.

The girl was kind in a special way; when you spoke to her, she seemed to stop thinking of whatever she been thinking and listened to you altogether.

Why did people do it? Why this herd curiosity about a street, a house, windows, doors? He was a public servant, the Inspector mused, but there were times when he would enjoy loading all the rubbernecks onto barges and towing them out to sea to be served, with ceremony, to sharks.

The place smelled male, not the metal-and-soap maleness of a locker room nor the malt-and-sawdust maleness of an old-time corner saloon, but the leather-and-oiled-wood maleness of a city club, as finished and self-consistent as the ash of a fine cigar. At sight of the skirted figure stalking him, the sole visible attendant took refuge behind a showcase; surely a giraffe, were it a male one, would have startled him less.

Had Walter ever read Bernard Shaw (he had not), he might have been pleased with the line, "When you have learned something, my dear, it often feels at first as if you had lost something.

For remember always the maxim: He who would know right must first know wrong!