A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. - Raymond Chandler

He reached for the card without excitement, read it, turned it over and read the back with as much care as the front. There was nothing on the back to read.

The most durable thing in writing is
style. It is a projection of personality and you have
to have a personality before you can project it. It
is the product of emotion and perception.

Manhattan is a small town. It has to be. Only half a dozen places in Kansas are anything else.