Other people, some other writers, will win certain accolades or sell in far greater numbers than me - and I'm a legitimate best-selling author - but I live and die for the work. That's thrilling to me. It's thrilling that I do for others what certain writers did for me when I was a kid.

I learn things late-and only the hard way.

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

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

I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

You get up in the morning because you might meet a woman. And if you stay at home by yourself, alone, you will not meet a woman.

The 250-page outline for American Tabloid. The books are so dense. They're so complex, you cannot write like I write off the top of your head. It's the combination of that meticulousness and the power of the prose and, I think, the depth of the characterizations and the risks that I've taken with language that give the books their clout. And that's where I get pissed off at a lot of my younger readers.