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

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

Has anyone ever told you," I said, "that you coalesce reality?" "No. They only say that I'm good in the sack." "They are accurate but limited," I said. "And if you give me their names I'll kill them.

I got thrown out of school several weeks in my senior year being caught in the girls' dorm. This was 1954, friends. The girls' dorm was off limits. Even to girls, I think.

I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing, and when I accepted that and found the way to do it, then I was able to write.

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.

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.