This was 1954, friends. The girls' dorm was off limits. Even to girls, I think.

Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

Very few of my books are about who stole the Maltese Falcon

Coincidence exists, but believing in it never did me any good.

The key to growing up well, is being tough enough.

I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even.

I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!

I think at this stage in my life I have learned that there are any number of things that men will never know, and can never hope to know, about women.

For David Parker and Daniel Parker, with the respect and admiration of their father, who grew up with them.

You do the best you can and you deal with the consequences. It's all there is.

When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places.

Long gone are the days when hospital stays and surgeries made up the bulk of seniors' annual medical expenses.

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

HIGGINS. Have you no morals, man? DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.

National antipathy is the basest, because the most illiberal and illiterate of all prejudices.

ISIS will be wiped out.Just off the face of the earth. This is evil.

We are going to continue having these meetings, everyday, until I find out why no work is getting done.

I think there's a myth that people feel, that people of success are never fearful, that we're never challenged, that we have some supernova - no, we're like everybody else.

While my writing does seem to ultimately have a lot to do with pantsing in the end, without the plotting, I'd get nowhere to begin with.

Next time you meet a 'foreigner', remember it's only like a window with a different shape to it and the person who's sitting inside is you.