My father actually went to college, and my mother went to nursing school, so, you know. I wouldn't... They were actually too square and right-wing to be hip, too well-educated to be white trash, too sexy to be square. They really didn't fit any mold. They weren't really hipsters. They were just - they were two of a kind, those two.

As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.

And you love to read, you love to escape, right?

Some people don’t respond to civility.

Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.

I'm trying to be less bombastic. I love my books. I think I've done things nobody else has done.

I don't know anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up. I don't know any criminals.