I was a university professor, I could talk on and on and on. Give me a podium and you have to drag me off with a hook.

I've been accused of being a minimalist writer. I don't like a lot of verbiage in there.

Chance wore a white tuxedo with tails. On anyone else? Doopy. On him? Yes, please.

Death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity.

Who's going to rob us? A crackhead crab? A jellyfish junkie?

Why do all your brilliant ideas involve felonies?

I've never lost my capacity to be shocked.

Indecision is the key to flexibility.

Channel your outrage ... Do that which you are able to do.

Though a good cop, Luc Claudel has the patience of a firecracker, the sensitivity of Vlad the Impaler, and a persistent skepticism as to the value of forensic anthropology. Snappy dresser, though.

Experience is a valuable thing. It enables us to recognize mistakes when we repeat them.

Mind what you mind. Do not just open the door of your mind to anything at all you don’t want to mind. Mind the things that get closer to your mind and mind your mind!

Distance lends enchantment to the view.

I was almost twelve years old when I decided to kill my parents.

War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.

Healing yourself is connected with healing others.

As a writer and director, I want to know what is behind the good manners and soft voice. Who is inside the silhouette?

Look: I am nothing. I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes.

Those who are blessed with the most talent don't necessarily outperform everyone else. It's the people with follow-through who excel.

The short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I like to encounter.

Our unconscious, then, does not believe in its own death; it behaves as if it were immortal. It knows nothing that is negative; in it contradictories coincide. This may be the secret of heroism.