The delicate sensitivity of a frightened rattlesnake.

When there's trouble in a family, it tends to show up in the weakest member. And all the other members of the family know that. They make allowances for the one in trouble.

An ugly woman with a gun is a terrible thing.

I wanted to write as well as I possibly could to deal with life-and-death problems in contemporary society. And the form of Wilkie Collins and Graham Greene, of Hammett and Chandler, seemed to offer me all the rope I would ever need.

The Archer novels are about various kinds of brokenness.

The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present.

Hell lies at the bottom of the human heart.