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

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.

This church was open and seemingly unattended, and it was a throwback in another way as well. The candles in the little side altars were real ones, actual wax candles that burned with an open flame. Lots of churches have switched over to electrified altars. You drop your quarter in the slot and a flame-shaped bulb goes on and stays on for your quarter's worth of time. It's like a parking meter, and if you stay too long they tow away your soul.

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've always essentially been a New Yorker.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.

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.