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.

Man, I so sick of dinosaurs. They wasn't extinct, I'd go out an' kill 'em myself.

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else.

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.

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?

Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day.