Quotes from Erle Stanley Gardner

Every eight years, the people swallow some politician hook, line, and sinker and make him president. They hold him on the political stomach for about six years. Then they commence to get indigestion because the politicians quit pouring the soda bicarbonate of publicity into their stomachs. At the end of eight years, they vomit him up in order to swallow someone else

Abruptly, she settled down against his shoulder with a little wriggling motion. "I'm getting my wires crossed," she admitted. "In order to get anywhere in this world, a woman is supposed to be feminine and leave the thinking to the males. They like it better that way.

He called the police and told them I was trying to blackmail him." "Were you?" "Not exactly. Bertha was trying to cut herself a piece of cake, and—" "And what?" I asked. "And the knife slipped," she said.

he did not believe in philanthropy, thinking that the ultimate purpose of life was to develop character; that the more a person came to depend on outside assistance, the more his character was weakened.

Talk is cheap. But, it's the only coin he's got with which to pay anyone anything. He hypnotizes himself into believing that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. But he hasn't got guts enough to go out and do it. He doesn't intend to get a job. He intends to get some more money from you in order to play a 'sure thing.

the money was to go only to those who had been incapacitated in life's battles: the crippled, the aged, the infirm. To those who could still struggle on, Sabin offered nothing. The privilege of struggling for achievement was the privilege of living, and to take away that right to struggle was equivalent to taking away life itself.

he'll have to cut out all of his gambling associations. He'll have to tell the court who got this money and what was done with it. He'll have to quit acting the part of a spoiled kid with an indulgent sister, and learn to stand on his own two feet, and it may make a man of him.

My mother was a wonderful woman. She had a loyalty which was unsurpassed, and a complete lack of nervousness. During all her married life, there was literally never an unkind word spoken, simply because she never allowed herself to develop any of those emotional reflexes, which so frequently make people want to bicker with those whom they love, or with whom they come in constant association.

He looks on an education only as a magic formula, which should enable him to go through life without work.

After you've written a story, the thing to do is sell it. Sounds simple, and it is, if one will follow certain basic principles of salesmanship.

I like what I like and not what I'm supposed to like because of mass rating. And I very much dislike the things I don't like.

It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.

Now listen, Lam," he said, "you're a nice egg but you've got yourself poured into the wrong pan.

Dear Editor: It's a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a check.

Courage is the antidote to danger.

Just because people are liars is no reason for us to be fools.

We're a dramatic people," Perry Mason said slowly. "We're not like the English. The English want dignity and order. We want the dramatic and the spectacular. It's a national craving. We're geared to a rapid rate of thought. We want to have things move in a spectacular manner.

I have one weapon," Mason said. "It's a powerful weapon. But sometimes it's hard to wield it because you don't know just where to grab hold of it." "What weapon is that?" Della Street asked. "The truth," Mason said.

To reach your goal, remember that courage is the only antidote for danger.

it takes a powerful motivation to lead to murder. That's why people don't usually murder comparative strangers.

When a man starts running away from things in life he builds up a whole chain of complexes and fear.

Then I'll have more fun searching in vain then marrying one of the wrong sort.

A great believer in precedent,' Della Street said. 'I think if he were ever confronted with a really novel situation he'd faint. He runs to his law books, digs around like a mole and finally comes up with case that's what he calls on all fours and was decided seventy-five or a hundred years ago.

Life is like that. We can only see from birth to death. The rest of it is cut from our vision." Drake