Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.

I like smooth shiny girls, hardboiled and loaded with sin.

You can always tell a detective on TV. He never takes his hat off.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.