I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman..

I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called..

She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another..

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel..

If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories..

I write of the wish that comes true--for some reason, a terrifying thought..

Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny..

O.K." "Gee I'm glad." "Me too. I'm so sick of hot dogs and beer and apple pie with cheese on the side I could heave it all in the river." "You'll lov….

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip..

I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake.

You usually can tell when a writer is going down hill by the size of his liquor bill..

New York is not even a city, it's a congerie of rotten villages..

I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character wou….

Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and seen her take it off. I am 54 years old, weigh 220….

If you have to do it, you can do it..

A home is not a museum. It doesn't have to be furnished with Picasso paintings, or Sheraton suites, or Oriental rugs, or Chinese pottery. But it does….

Time is the only critic..

If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either"..

A guitar has moonlight in it..

They threw me off the haytruck about noon..

A gun is like breath to a drowning man--it has to be drawn in haste..