Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying was the one that followed the famous Greene murders.
The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment in the most beautiful manner.
You see, every day, that the people who are seemingly so confident and seemingly so in love with themselves are the ones who are the most insecure and hurting the most inside.
The simplest and most practical lesson I know is to resolve to be good today, but better tomorrow.
Sometimes, the easiest food to get your hands on is the stuff that's the worst for you. It's the most high in saturated fat. It's the most calorie dense, and it's really the least nutritiously beneficial stuff.
[Jehovah is] certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty.
. . .the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvelous, the most miraculous. . . the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private till today. . . I cannot bring myself to tell you: guess what it is.
I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.
It matters not the subject taught, nor all the books on all the shelves, What matters most, yes most of all, is what the teachers are themselves.
Sometimes the simplest things are the most profound.
I found that of the senses, the eye is the most superficial, the ear the most arrogant, smell the most voluptuous, taste the most superstitious and fickle, touch the most profound and the most philosophical.
As a parent, you experience the most of everything. The most love, the most fear, the most hurt and the most tired, the most of every emotion.
Honestly, I get character ideas from the most inane places. Sometimes a song will give me an idea. Sometimes I will just hear a snippet of conversation that ends up having nothing to do with the book that emerges.
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow- witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.
Real happiness is so simple that most people do not recognize it. It is derived from the simplest, the quietest, the most unpretentious things in the world.
Most of the time, the songs have jokes in them, little sarcastic things, or purposely kitsch or something. So that's going along with a story, like I do in life, just talking to myself and making fun of stuff and laughing at stuff that's serious. And sometimes it's a good idea to put the laughing into the songs. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's all right just to be serious. But most of the songs have some kind of joke in them.