Donald Westlake's Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you've been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust-these are the books you'll want on that desert island.

If fate sends you a lemon, use it to make lemonade.

People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things.

Stories are like assholes. Everybody's got one and most of 'em stink.

One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.

Why on earth should I care whether people read me with their eyes or their ears?

If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass.