Coincidence exists, but believing in it never did me any good.

Very few of my books are about who stole the Maltese Falcon

Well, you give me too much credit for foresight and planning. I haven't got a clue what the hell I'm doing.

Yeah. Floyd is his batman." His what?" Batman, like in the British army, each officer had a batman, a personal servant." You spend too much time reading, Spenser. You know more stuff that don't make you money than anybody I know.

For David Parker and Daniel Parker, with the respect and admiration of their father, who grew up with them.

I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even.

Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays.