The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

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.

That's all it takes, one drop of fear to curdle love into hate.

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

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

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.