If it weren't for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn't have any ideas at all.

Whenever things sound easy, it turns out there's one part you didn't hear.

If you leave me here," the guy on the floor said, "he'll kill me tomorrow morning." Parker looked at him. "So you've still got tonight," he said.

Writing is flat, so if you only have part of one eye working, you still can do the job. It's just that you sit there and you're angry, which doesn't help.

When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.

Everybody in New York is looking for something. Once in a while, somebody finds it.

My wife says in Richard Stark's world, the honest citizens are goofy. Okay, they are. I don't know if it's good or bad, but because he's outside his own world, it sort of freed up the environment around him to be a little more looser and goofier.