Pride was the belt you used to hold your pants up when you had no pants.

Even at eleven, he had observed that things turned out right a ridiculous amount of the time.

No one ever really pays for betrayal in silver....The price of any betrayal always comes due in flesh.

A writer's notebook is the best way in the world to immortalize bad ideas. My idea about a good idea is one that sticks around and sticks around and sticks around.

Everything's a lot tougher when it's for real. That's when you choke. When it's for real.

The past is obdurate.

The age of the book is not over. No way... But maybe the age of some books is over. People say to me sometimes 'Steve, are you ever going to write a straight novel, a serious novel' and by that they mean a novel about college professors who are having impotence problems or something like that. And I have to say those things just don't interest me. Why? I don't know. But it took me about twenty years to get over that question, and not be kind of ashamed about what I do, of the books I write.