You should not really entertaining anyone else, but trying to be yourself, because there are already more good books than you or I could ever read in our lifetime.

More than periods where I don't write anything, I have periods where I just write junk and I know I'm writing junk but I can't stop.

Novels are a kind of experiment in selfhood, for the reader as well as for the author.

You never want to have to give your child bad news of any kind.

I seem to have a talent for writing endings that seem just right to me but that frustrate other people.

Kenneth Branagh. There was a time in my life when people would tell me constantly that I look like him. I could do a lot worse than that.

New York is ultimately not the synthesis but merely the sum of its unfathomable subjectivities, its personal histories, its uncategorisable figures.

I personally feel I still have so much to learn as a writer; each novel is better than the one before, just because I'm getting better at it.

I once saw John Updike get in front of a crowd and read a story that he'd written in 1958, and I just thought, I can't even look at stuff I wrote a year ago, I can't believe he's doing this.

That's a long way of saying no, I'm always too bound up in thinking about the characters in whatever I'm working on and trying to make good to dwell on characters from previous books.

Luckily for you, you can close the book The Postman Always Rings Twice and break out of it, and James M. Cain can't. I can't think of any redeeming feature he has, but he's extremely compelling.

Money is perhaps the single most important parameter which influences our decision when it comes to a job.

When people leave you, identify why they left and think about what is left

I don't think we can solve the outside problemsuntil we solve the ones within.

Redemption is for the weak. The strong keep sinning

Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.

Every one of my books is written from the viewpoint of cops, with the exception of my book Killer on the Road, which is written from the viewpoint of a serial killer.

Sometimes I feel like I'm possessed with a multitude of demons.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

Persistence is the quality of winners. Successful people never, never give up.

I started eBay as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job.