"They call it genre writing, what I write--the Mystery genre, the Romance, the Science Fiction--and the literary critics and academics say that that's a lower class of writing. But it could be better writing than many of the so-called literary writers. I think most of the literary writers are boring. I think the academics learn to read them and sort of accept the fact that they're kinda boring. It's almost like it's gotta be boring if it's gonna be literature, which is ridiculous. There are a lot of writers that I don't think are good--they use too many words.....there are some good writers in my field. You mentioned Charles Willeford, he was a good writer."

"I love Elmore Leonard. In fact, to me True Romance is basically like an Elmore Leonard movie that he didn't write, you know. And like, actually, I actually owe a big debt to like kind of figuring out my style from Elmore Leonard because, you know, he was the first writer I'd ever read - and, but also like Charles Willeford did it as well - but he was one of the first writers I had ever read that just let mundane conversations actually inform the characters, you know, and then all of a sudden, 'Boof!,' you know, you're into whatever story you're telling. But the thing is, though, it's just a genre I've always really liked and always had a lot of appreciation for and liked going to, and I thought I would do a good job with it."

"I still write on yellow pads with a ballpoint pen, a Mont Blanc. They're not legal pads but an unlined 8 1/2 by 11 buff-colored stock I order from a printer: 60 pages to a pad, 50 pads, or 3000 sheets that last about a year. I do the typing not at the end of the day but as I go along, composing in longhand a page or a few paragraphs, then putting it on the typewriter to see what it looks like, hoping to do four or five pages in an eight-hour day. I can't imagine ever using a word processor."

"Writers that have provided inspiration: Hemingway, John O'Hare, Steinbeck, Raymond Carver and, most of all, Richard Bissell, who wrote a few books set on the Mississippi River in the '50s and is best known for his novel 7 1/2 CENTS, which was adapted as the musical 'The Pajama Game.'"

"My favorite author I think for fiction is Don Delillo. I think his book LIBRA was just fascinating. I think he's a wonderful writer. I like Russell Banks a lot. Both of them have new books out I'm waiting to read. And I like a short story writer named Andre Dubus. I like him an awful lot."

"... if I can write 4 pages in that day, I'm happy about it. I used to be able to write 5 and 6, in fact going way back, I could write a page an hour but I didn't know what I was doing then. When I started writing and I had a job at an ad agency, I'd get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and write for two hours before going to work. I wrote most of 5 books that way. I could do a page an hour. I knew I was going to do 2 pages. I had one rule: I had to start writing before I put the water on for coffee. And I couldn't pick up a magazine. If I hadn't done that, we wouldn't be talking."

"I like Willeford a lot. He and I corresponded for two years before he died."

"I've had lots of different jobs in which I've met uneducated people. I've met criminals and police officers. I can hear 'em. I don't try to get as much slang in. It's more the rhythm, the cadence of the speech. Leaving a word out here and there, making it sound right to the ear."

"[On learning how to write:] You have to be influenced by somebody. Take advantage of it and imitate. Learn to deveop your own style by imitating. I learned by imitating Hemingway, as thousands of others did. Until I realized that I didn't share his attitude about life. I didn't take myself or anything as seriously as he did. I think your style, your voice, comes out of your attitude. Whether you're optimistic, or have a sense of humor or are grumpy or what. that sound can get into your writing. "

"Bush should recognize before it's too late that, not unlike other dogmatic ideologues in history, the neoconservative intellectuals who argue that Iraq could be turned into a shining model of democracy for the Middle East are advancing their own wishful thinking and political agendas. They are not advancing the interests of the rest of America."