The Case of the Howling Dog Quotes

“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.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“Don’t ever fool yourself that facts don’t fit, if you get the right explanation. They’re just like jigsaw puzzles—when you get them right, they’re all going to fit together.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“And remember this, Frank: whenever you get to the trial of a case, never try to arouse one single emotion in the minds of a jury and bear down steadily on that emotion. “Pick some dominant emotion if you want, but touch on it only for a few moments. Then swing your argument to something else. Then come back to it. The human mind is like a pendulum: you can start it swinging a little at a time and gradually come back with added force, until finally you can close in a burst of dramatic oratory, with the jury inflamed to white rage against the other side. But if you try to talk to a jury for as much as fifteen minutes, and harp continually upon one line, you will find that the jurors have quit listening to you before you finish.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“I knew that by the time the authorities got done with him, he’d make a positive identification. That’s a slick way they have of taking a witness over a period of time, and letting him become more and more positive. They showed him Bessie Forbes, on at least a dozen different occasions. They did it casually, so that he didn’t know he was being hypnotized. First, they showed him the woman, and told him that was the one who had been in his cab. Then they brought him in and confronted her with him, and told her that he had identified her. She didn’t say anything, but refused to answer questions.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“A lawyer,” said Perry Mason slowly, “who wouldn’t skate on thin ice for a client ain’t worth a damn.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“The courtroom atmosphere was stale with that psychic stench which comes from packed humans whose emotions are roused to a high pitch of excitement.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“The only reason I collect good money for what I do, is because I’ve demonstrated my ability to do it. If the taxpayers didn’t give you your salary check every month until you’d delivered results, you might have to go hungry a few months,—unless you showed more intelligence than you’re showing on this case.”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“Clinton Foley is living?” “Of course he’s living. He’s living next door”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog

“appraisal was evident in his glance. “Well, then,” he said, “let’s hear about”
― Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Howling Dog