You know, my mother once told me "Never go someplace where you're not welcome."
— You might be wired for sound, and there's only one way to find out, and I'm not sure you'd enjoy it.
— How do you know I wouldn't?
Then this is a remarkable coincidence. In a world that operates largely at random coincidences are to be expected but each one of them must always be mistrusted.
— During the seven months that you lived with Miss Usher did she have any callers?
— She never had any.
— Do you mean to say that she had no friends... men or women?
— I never saw any. She never even had a date; she never even got any phone calls. I used to tell her, "Faith, that's no way to live just crawling around like a worm like that."
Archie... I said it is vainglorious to reproach yourself for lack of omniscience. The same is true for omnipotence.
— But you were an agent of the Austrian government?
— As a boy. I quit.
— And then you joined the Montenegrin army?
— Still a boy, immature. I believed then that all misguided people should be shot. I shot some.
— There's no discipline in this country, Mr. Wolfe.
— I wouldn't say that. We submit to traffic cops and sanitary codes. We are extremely fond of certain liberties.
Nothing is as pitiable as a man afraid of a woman.