“Genius is fine for the ignition spark, but to get there someone has to see that the radiator doesn't leak and no tire is flat.”

“What the tongue has promised, the body must submit to.”

“[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.”

“You can't base your actions on the theory that anyone you don't keep your eye on is apt to get killed.”

“Wolfe could get sentimental about it if he wanted to, but I don't like any stranger nosing around my private affairs, let alone a nation of 130 million people.-Archie Goodwin”

“Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has made to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.”

“Wolfe was drinking beer and looking at pictures of snowflakes in a book someone had sent him from Czechoslovakia......Wolfe seemed absorbed in the pictures. Looking at him, I said to myself, "He's in a battle with the elements. He's fighting his way through a raging blizzard, just sitting there comfortably looking at pictures of snowflakes. That's the advantage of being an artist, of having imagination." I said aloud, "You mustn't go to sleep, sir, it's fatal. You freeze to death.”