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.

But the participants [in war] never forgot the details of their experience, and like the Wandering Jew, they were condemned to remain their own history books, each containing a story they could not pass on to others and from which no one would learn anything of value.

To misuse one's talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.

Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.

Today, there are more opportunities for writers in terms of access to larger success, but it's more difficult to publish a literary novel in the lower ranges. In other words, you almost have to hit a home run. You can hit a triple, maybe, but nobody's interested in a single.

If we break promises to God, shouldn't we be allowed an occasional violation of our word to our friends and superiors?

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.