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.

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.

I can't persuade myself that one of the problems facing the planet today might be a shortage of books by me.

I wanted a drink. There were a hundred reasons why a man will want a drink, but I wanted one now for the most elementary reason of all. I didn't want to feel what I was feeling, and a voice within was telling me that I needed a drink, that I couldn't bear it without it. But that voice is a liar. You can always bear the pain. It'll hurt, it'll burn like acid in an open wound, but you can stand it. And, as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going.

Everybody's weird, fundamentally everybody is a snap. Sometimes it's a sexual thing and sometimes it's a different kind of weirdness, but one way or another everybody's nuts.

It's the easiest thing in the world to know God's will. You just wait and see what happens, and that's it.

I don't know about the rest of the country but in New York more people have learned anonymity from rent control than ever discovered it in a twelve-step program.