You do the best you can and you deal with the consequences. It's all there is.

I was on the Oprah Winfrey Show once. It was a really slow news day for Oprah, and there were several of us on 'cause none of us was sufficiently interesting by his or herself.

I had achieved the most important things in my life when I married Joan and had the sons. Given the choice between Joan and the boys, and being a writer, I world give up being a writer without a blink.

Teaching is too strong a word for whatever it was I did at Northeastern University

I took my .38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And I'd seen Clint Eastwood do it once in the movies.

I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!

This was 1954, friends. The girls' dorm was off limits. Even to girls, I think.