I like a little danger. Tame danger, controlled by me. It gives me a sense of power, I guess, to take my life in my hands and know damn well I’m not going to lose it.

The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world of disasters.

The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure.

The Archer novels are about various kinds of brokenness.

Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.

I have a secret passion for mercy. . . but justice is what keeps happening to people.

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.