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.

If you think of movie studio executives, say, as society, then I root for the independent producers.

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.

In a funny way, the stories keep themselves alive by emerging from one another. I like that.

I don't think I would have been a good architect. Really, I have thought about this from time to time, and I might have wound up like my father, who never did find that which he could devote his life to. He sort of drifted from job to job. He was a traveling salesman, he was a bookkeeper, he was an office manager, he was here, there, there. And however enthusiastic he was at the beginning, his job would bore him. If I hadn't had the writing, I think I might have replicated what he was doing, which would not have been good.

In order to hold your faith intact be sure it's kept unsullied by fact.