When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always know that when I get a good night’s sleep, the next day I’m not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It’s not all inspirational.

They threw me off the haytruck about noon.

Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.

You usually can tell when a writer is going down hill by the size of his liquor bill.

If you have to do it, you can do it.

If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.

When it’s too good, you do it over again. Too good is too easy. If it’s too easy you have to worry. If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to, either. I always know that when I get a good night’s sleep, the next day I’m not going to get any work done. Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It’s not all inspirational.