I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard.

Organized crime is the dirty side of the sharp dollar.

It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death should be the coin of what we call civilization.

You can't tell a doper well under control from a vegetarian book-keeper.

If you believe in an idea, you don't own you, it owns you.

All reading for pleasure is entertainment.

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance, it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.