“It is only fair to admit, however, that my batting average in the crystal ball league is point, zero, zero, zero.”

“Do you have to do murder?Do we have to do murder? Sure we have to do murder. There are only two subjects--a woman's chastity, and murder. Nobody's interested in chastity any more. Murder's all we got to write stories about.”

“The only number that would ever be enough is 0. Zero pounds, zero life, size zero, double-zero, zero point. Zero in tennis is love. I finally get it.”

“One of the pleasant things about you is that you're entirely predictable because you never learn. I've told you before, and I'm telling you again, that people who murder other people are dangerous to be around. You're charming, my dear, and sometimes you act like an awful fool. Someday it'll be you that doesn't wake up at the foot of some stone steps. Those are terms a first-grader ought to be able to understand--won't you see what you can make of them?”

“You can always tell duty. It's what you don't want to do--it's what you fight against inside you. Duty's when you realize how it'll hurt other people and you choose between that and what would be easiest for you.”

“Lilac makes on occasion a sound between a sniff and a snort that's as damning as all improper words in the language and, like them, can't be written down.”

“...it's hard to confine an irrational woman in a rational pattern, so I had no idea really what was in her mind.”