I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal

You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer

The last paragraph in which you tell what the story is about is almost always best left out.

I look at everything. God gave me eyes and I look at women and men and subway excavations and moving pictures and the little flowers of the field. I casually inspect the universe.

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.

The great writers just kept bringing them out. They didn't care if they repeated themselves.

People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly.