The mysterious does not spell itself out in capital letters, as many writers believe, but is always between, an interstice.

All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

In quoting others, we cite ourselves.

Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.

Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.

(memory is) A strange echo, which stores its replicas according to some other acoustic than consciousness or expectation.

The modern story begun, one might say, with Edgar Allan Poe, which proceeds inexorably, like a machine destined to accomplish its mission with the maximum economy of means.

We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe.

For me the thing that signals a great story is what we might call its autonomy, the fact that it detaches itself from its author like a soap bubble blown from a clay pipe.

I think it is vanity to want to put into a story anything but the story itself.

The more a book is like an opium pipe, the more the Chinaman reader is satisfied with it and tends to discuss the quality of the drug rather than its lethargic effects.

The five stages of bureaucratic grieving are: denial, anger, committee meetings, scapegoating, and cover-up.

When they say whatever you say may be used against you, they mean it!

Get punctual, bring energy and creativity to your work, and stay with a project until it's completed (and then double-check the results). These habits will make you indispensable.

Each of your excursions is balanced by the strengthening of the tonal.

You never have to second guess a person or your feelings and instincts about that person if you pay attention to their actions, not solely their words - actions always speak louder.

It is not a sentimental, but a grimly literal fact that unless we share this terrestrial globe with creatures other than ourselves, we shall not be able to live on it for long.

I like Chicago. It's a great city. It's always fun to revisit it.

The handling of a problem seems to be simply the increase of ability to confront the problem and when the problem can be totally confronted it no longer exists.

I think Melbourne is by far and away the most interesting place in Australia, and I thought if I ever wrote a novel or crime novel of any kind, I had to set it here.

When you meet silent and inscrutable people, don't tell them what you are thinking. When you meet irritable and self-serving people, be careful what you say.