Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.

The short story, I should point out, is perforce a labor of love in today's literary world; there's precious little economic incentive to write one.

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.

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 think persistence in the face of adversity is an essential part of a writer’s job description. If you don’t care enough about it to avoid being easily disheartened that way, you really should be doing something else.

I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.

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.