To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.

The truth is you don't like the theater except the times when you're in a room by yourself putting the play on paper.

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second “you.

The roof might fall in; anything could happen.

I deserve all the love you can spare me. And I want a lot more than I deserve.

What I try to do is write a story about a detective rather than a detective story. Keeping the reader fooled until the last, possible moment is a good trick and I usually try to play it, but I can't attach more than secondary importance to it. The puzzle isn't so interesting to me as the behavior of the detective attacking it.

I distrust a man that says when. If he's got to be careful not to drink to much it's because he's not to be trusted when he does.