I almost had an intransigent mental spirit. I always wanted things.

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

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.

"War gives men a plain-and-simple something to do ... Women write diaries in the hope that their words will beckon fate." It's a romantic manifesto.

The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum. A novel so steeped in milieu that it feels as if you've blasted to mars in the grip of a demon who won't let you go. Read this book, savor the language-it's the last-and the most compelling word in thrillers.

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.

I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.