Tod Goldberg has long been one of the most interesting writers around, and Gangsterland is his biggest and best book so far.

Reading a novel in which all characters illustrate patience, hard work, chastity, and delayed gratification could be a pretty dull experience.

I do try not to spend much time reading in the suspense genre.

I don't have dry seasons, because I don't allow them.

I had been writing fiction since I was in eighth grade, because I loved it.

If I don't have a project going, I sit down and begin to write something - a character sketch, a monologue, a description of some sight, or even just a list of ideas.

Yes, in my books I do edit myself to keep from becoming the Village Explainer.

Much of what we do in life has a huge component of luck.

I do want to write about Jane Whitefield again, but only when I have a good enough idea - something I've figured out about her that's news and that's worth a reader's time.

It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.

Contrary to what many writers imply about the process, nobody forces a writer to sell his work to the film industry.

When you get lost in love, you become oblivious to oblivion.

History was ignorant and had a mean streak, so it tended to repeat.

People have all day to talk about what makes them ordinary. It turns out that they want to share what makes them weird.

An excellent weapon and luck had been on my side. To be successful, the best fighter pilot needs both.

Don't pay attention to what anyone is telling you about your personal journey just keep going, because that's what it's all about.

I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

You ought never to sass old people- unless they sass you first.

I don't want to get too nuanced, but we have the electoral college in the United States and that means we don't have direct democracy.

Indeed, linear extrapolations make no large-scale sense in a universe that has spatial and temporal curvature.

A good funeral gets the dead where they need to go and the living where they need to be.