One of our continuing myths was summed up in Huckleberry Finn: Our escape, what we think of as our escape, is that we can always light out for the territories. Well, we really can't, not anymore, but that's part of the American character - that belief that at any moment, I could just drop the coffee cup and disappear. And it makes for a different self-image and a different story, in a way.

When the guy with asthma finally came in from the fire escape, Parker rabbit-punched him and took his gun away.

I know people who have suffered writer's block, and I don't think I've ever had it. A friend of mine, for three years he couldn't write. And he said that he thought of stories and he knew the stories, could see the stories completely, but he could never find the door. Somehow that first sentence was never there. And without the door, he couldn't do the story. I've never experienced that. But it's a chilling thought.

It's so difficult, particularly with an antisocial character. It's much easier if he's already a blank page, but once you've written on him, it's hard to keep him that stripped down.

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

Hoke Moseley is a magnificently battered hero. Willeford brings him to us lean and hard and brand-new.

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.