“I don't know about the rest of the country but in New York more people have learned anonymity from rent control than ever discovered it in a twelve-step program.”

“Everybody tells me what a timesaver the Internet is, and how they can't believe they ever got along without it. And I know what they mean, but every time I use it I wind up wondering what people did with their spare time before computers came along to suck it all up.”

“People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things.”

“I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.”

“Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not.”

“Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. ”

“One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing—writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.”