Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.

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

Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and seen her take it off. I am 54 years old, weigh 220 pounds, and look like the chief dispatcher of a long-distance driving concern. I am a registered Democrat. I drink.

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.

I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake

I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman.

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.