I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.

all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved.

Of course people couldn't help but think I must be a bit of a dyke myself. And of course I am. Everyone is: a bit. So what? That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on.

If you have a single narrator, a person like an "I" - "'I' did this" and "'I' did that" - it automatically solves the most difficult problem in writing.

You don't run out on people; you run out on yourself.

I think my greatest talent really is for friendship.

Sicily is more beautiful than any woman.