Watch for a wild boy of no particular clan, ready for anything, always armed. Prefers fighting to toil, drink to fighting, chasing women to booze or battle: may attempt all three concurrently.

And money can't buy everything. For example: poverty.

Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.

I don't recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.

For the masses who do the city's labor also keep the city's heart.

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

You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.