“when you're really cute that's all you have to be, you make a career out of it. someone asks you what you do, you say, 'nothing. i'm cute.”

“You never know what somebody might tell you,' Chris said, 'when they think you're somebody else.”

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”

“There were a lot of terms you had to learn, as opposed to the shylock business where all you had to know how to say was 'Give me the fuckin money.”

“I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don’t you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.”

“I always felt, you don’t have a good time doin crime, you may as well find a job.”

“You thinkin bout the time I shot you and you rose from the dead? It only happens once in your life." He turned to Carol again and she said:"Were you actually aiming at his hat?""I hit it didn't I?”