Humility is not a virtue in a writer, it is an absolute necessity.

How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

What's the worst thing about getting old? Getting old.

Why do I always feel like you're trying to staple my umbilical cord to the corner of your desk?

I could only wonder again at the white race's naïveté in always sending forth our worst members as our emissaries.

The best thing about being a best-selling writer is being a best-selling writer. More seriously, today I can write full time and pay the bills.

I think the "crime novel" has replaced the sociological novel of the 1930s. I think the progenitor of that tradition is James M. Cain, who in my view is the most neglected writer in American literature.