Extreme joy and extreme sorrow are indistinguishable beyond a certain point. (“Jane Brown’s Body”)

Babette looked too good for the place tonight, but then goodness is only relative after all (“Steps Going Up” aka “Guillotine” aka “Men Must Die”)

There is no hard and fast line that can be drawn that says: Up to here there was no love; from here on there is now love. Love is a gradual thing, it may take...

New York. The world’s most dramatic city. Like a permanent short circuit, sputtering and sparking up into the night sky all night long. No place like it for living. And probably no place like it...

It was as simple as that – they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple.(“For The Rest Of Her Life”)

He’s prowling back and forth like a lion with distemper now. There’s a shiny streak down one side of his face. “I shouldn’t have let her go ahead – I ought to be hung! Something’s...

Stahl trailed him upstairs, across a mezzanine, and out into the darkness of the sloping balcony. Tom gave the aisle his torch so his guest could see. On the screen below a woman’s head was...

And then finally she came – and the whole world faded out around us and we were just alone on the crowded sidewalk. I’ve heard it called love.(“I Won’t Take a Minute” aka “I’ll Just...

You his brother?”Yes, damn it!’ I burst out. “And all I want is to get my hands on whoever did this to him!”Funny,’ said a dick dryly, ‘but so do we.’I didn’t like him much...

O’Shaughnessy is hitting Denholt on the side of his head with his free arm, great, walloping, pile-driver blows. The two of them stagger together, like partners in a crazy dance. Glass is breaking all around...

I rang the bell and she opened the door, dried her hands, and said heartily: ‘Hello, stranger. I was just saying to Cliff only tonight, it’s about time you showed up around here.’I wanted to...

There was nothing the matter out there. It was in here, with me.I decided I’d better go to work, maybe that would exorcise me. I fled from the room almost as though it were haunted....

But that’s the Way, and there is no other. And once his mind’s made up, the trembling and aimless walking stops, and he can look doom in the face without flinching. (“Jane Brown’s Body”)

The big weekend rush is on. The big city emptying itself out at once. Just a skeleton crew left to keep it going until Monday morning. Everybody getting out – everybody but me, everybody but...

Maldonado’s face was ghastly. ‘That’ she said, pointing below the bed where the cat lurked, ‘and that’ – pointing to what lay on the floor – ‘prove it was no dream. Do dreams leave marks...

And he’s alone there, with the unconscious pilot lying a little way off for company, and some other guy he’s never even seen, only spoken to over the radio.He wants to sleep so badly –...

The French doctor – the French, they are a very logical race and make good doctors – says: “M’sieu, they have all been on the wrong track – (“Jane Brown’s Body”)

And I still say it was just a coincidence;’ he muttered pugnaciously. ‘You say it too! Look at me and say it! It was just a coincidence. That happened to be the nearest place on...

It’s six o’clock; my drink is at the three-quarter mark – three-quarters down not three-quarters up – and the night begins.(“New York Blues”)

Evans turned away, did something with his left eyelid for the benefit of the other two. “It’s got him,” he smirked. “He’s tuned-in from now on.”Time started to slow up and act crazy. Minutes took...

That’s a man’s vital spot, the helpless thing he loves. (“Jane Brown’s Body”)

It takes will power and nerve to hold the stick that way, to keep his eyes open and watch the rocky face of the cliff, pine-bearded, rush up at them. O’Shaughnessy’s mouth flattens, his face...

Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his ‘teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire...

Every life is a mystery. And every story of every life is a mystery. But it is not what happens that is the mystery. It is whether it has to happen no matter what, whether...

The struggle doesn’t last long; it’s too unequal. Their momentary surprise overcome, they close in on him. The well-directed slice of a gun-butt slackens the good arm; it’s easy to pry the disabled one from...

I hate the world. Everything comes into it so clean and goes out so dirty. (from COVER CHARGE – currently not listed)

Then without any warning the car stopped. They were there.”The ride’s over,” someone said. “End of the ride.”For a moment nobody got out. They just sat there. The driver cut the ignition, and after that...

After that there was silence for a while, only the sound of the shovel biting into the earth and the hissing splatter of the loose dirt.They stood him up, his back to the well.In the...

Go to Zillicks down the block. It has three booths at the back. Go in the middle one and wait. When you lamp me turning the pages of the directory outside, shove your money in...

It was male, of course; menace is always male. (“Nightmare”)

Being broke didn’t seem so awful as it had yesterday, being broke but being at peace with the world.(“Don’t Wait Up For Me Tonight”)

It seems so long ago that he was last afraid of anything. Seventeen, was he then? Eighteen? Sometimes he thinks he’s missing a lot by being like this – fear gives life a fillip. He...

Well, this is the hardest part to believe; look, you can suspend me if you want to, but it’s the God’s honest truth. This man Tompkins came all the way down to where I was...

It’s hard to say goodbye for good at any time or any place. It’s harder still to say it through a meshed wire. It crisscrossed his face into little diagonals, gave me only little broken-up...

It must be dawn, and the last breath went out of this body on the table – how long before? Irretrievably gone from this world, as dead as though she had lived a thousand years...

…all a guy can do is die once. The big difference is whether he dies clean – or dirty… (“I’m Dangerous Tonight”)

A scattering of pinpoint lights shows up in the blackness ahead. A town or village straddling the highway. The indicator on the speedometer begins to lose ground. The man glances in his mirror at the...

Lew had never seen a dead man before. He just stood there, and looked and looked. Then he went a step closer, and looked some more. ‘So that’s what it’s like!’ he murmured inaudibly. Finally...

You haven’t any right to expect your friends to be larger than yourself, larger than life. Just take them as they are, cut down to average size, and be glad you have them. To drink...

You’d be surprised how difficult it is to ask alms of a stranger when you’ve never done it before, what a psychological barrier separates the honest man from the panhandler. (“Dusk To Dawn”)

She was ready to be a fugitive with him for the rest of her life – ‘Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people’ – and when a Parisienne is ready...

The portieres were drawn across the French windows now, veiling the stars outside – that were there nevertheless. (“Speak To Me Of Death”)

He should have caught up with me inside of fifteen minutes at the outside, if he’d been able to get on the next train after mine. But then there was that station agent to be...

I didn’t look over my shoulder; there wasn’t a sound behind me on the pavement, but I knew he was coming slowly after me. The crawl of the skin up and down my back told...

She had said: ‘You could not hate anyone that much -‘ She was mistaken. What did she know? She felt so good right now, this must be hate, what else could it be?(“Mind Over Murder”)

A raging, glowering full moon had come up, was peering down over the side of the sky well above the patio.That was the last thing she saw as she leaned for a moment, inert with...

One of them hasn’t got a uniform on or plainclothes either like the rest. He has on the white coat that is my nightmare and my horror. And in the crotch of one arm he...

Business after all is a form of warfare; you bring all your available weapons to bear. If you don’t you’re a fool. (“Jane Brown’s Body”)

I wasn’t that good you know. What I was was a guy who could write a little, publishing in magazines surrounded by people who couldn’t write at all. So I looked pretty good. But I...

She turned and walked down the musty, dimly-lighted corridor, along a strip of carpeting that still clung together only out of sheer stubbornness of skeletal weave. Doors, dark, oblivious, inscrutable, sidling by; enough to give...