Where’s your sketch pad?” I asked. … “I gave that up,” Kay said. “I wasn’t very good, so I changed my major.” “To what?” “To pre-med, then psychology, then English lit, then history.” “I like a woman who knows what she wants.” Kay smiled. “So do I, but I don’t know any.

As critical acclaim and response has built up, every interview I give is a chance to puncture the myth I've created about my work and refine it.

When I look at Perfidia, I think, "That's a Pulitzer Prize winner. That's a National Book Award winner." It's not going to get it. It's going to be shelved in crime and it's just the way it is. I've done something that no one else has ever done; I've started out as a mystery writer, a police writer, and a crime writer, and I became something entirely different.

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.

Some people don’t respond to civility.

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

I've created a narrative of the world. I live in the world - tenuously, most times. I've avoided the digital world.