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.

Cats gotta scratch. Dogs gotta bite. I gotta write.

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.

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

She quoted a dead playwright and called me a bullet with nothing but a future. She understood my lack of self-pity. She knew why I despised everything that might restrict my forward momentum. She knew that bullets have no conscience. They speed past things and miss their marks as often as they hit them.

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.

Well, the clues are there. They always are. Which is why when crimes are solved decades after the fact, it's obvious that the clues had always been right in front of them. A traffic ticket in Brooklyn is how they got ["Son of Sam" serial killer] David Berkowitz. You've just got to look.