Quotes from Ed McBain

The feathers in the one pillow on the bed were duck down. The feather found, therefore, had not come from the pillow. It was found stuck to a smear of blood, so chances were it was left by the killer and not left by someone who'd been in the room previous to the killer. If the killer, therefore, had a pigeon feather stuck to his clothes, chances were he was a pigeon fancier. All the cops had to do was track down every pigeon fancier in the city. That job was for the birds.

little wrapped package

had taken her for his bride. She had good legs, very white, and a good body, and her name was May.

The police department is a vast organization, and a detective is only an organization man.

Long before any genius producer began singing the blues on an imaginary hill in an unnamed city where a mix of a dozen or so cops came and went in what was known to script writers as "the usual squadroom boil," Cop Hater set the tone and the pattern for a police series in which—so far as I was concerned—there were no restrictions on content or style.

It always rains on Mondays anyway. Monday is the bitchingest day in the week and should be struck completely from the calendar.

Are you hungry?" "A little," I paused, "and thirsty." "Miss Collins will get you some dinner. And a glass of milk." "Milk?" I said. I tried to raise my eyebrows but even that hurt. "Milk," the doctor repeated.

But The Preacher operated on the theory that if you told a big enough lie often enough, people would accept it as the truth.

lot of money over

Il lui arrivait souvent de regarder les vieilles dames qui traversaient d'un pas traînant les rues de la ville là ou l'autobus menaçait et savait qu'à l'intérieur de ces corps ratatinés souriaient des visages resplendissants d'adolescentes.

We can't let a cop be killed because a cop is a symbol of law and order.

them perhaps half an hour to finish all they have to do. Alan gets behind the wheel and honks the horn. In the stillness of the night, it sounds like

The world is made of stairs, and there are those who go up and those who go down.

I wanted to be an artist. I was studying art. I wanted to be a great painter. When I went into the Navy, there wasn't much to draw at sea. So I began writing, and I began reading a lot.

He sees death in the prostitutes who have witnessed the death of honor, and daily multiply the death of love, who bleed away their own lives 50 times a day beneath the relentless stabbings of countless conjugations.