Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.

Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.

Our myths are so many, our vision so dim, our self-deception so deep and our smugness so gross that scarcely any way now remains of reporting the American Century except from behind the billboards.

The only way I could finish a book and get a plot was just to keep making it longer until something happens.

(Chicago is) the only major city in the country where you can easily buy your way out of a murder rap.

When we get more houses than we can live in, more cars than we can ride in, more food than we can eat ourselves, the only way of getting richer is by cutting off those who don't have enough.