Donald E. Westlake Quotes

Who`s a boy gonna talk to if not his mother?

Nothing about it interested me. Or about anything else, except making up stories. If literacy weren`t so nearly universal, God knows what I`d be. A drain on the State, I shouldn`t wonder.

I loved it, but social reality impeded. Now I wander in here at 9 in the morning or so, and come back for a while in the afternoon. I am a very lenient boss.

The many magazines, ranging from pulp to slick, that used to serve as both farm teams for writers and lures to readers, with hundreds of short stories every month, don`t exist. Most of the doors for new people have been sealed.

My father wanted me to be an architect. The one thing I learned was that the kitchen and bathroom should be near each other, to simplify the plumbing.

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me.

I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off.

Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote.

My work schedule has changed over the years. The one constant is, when at work on a novel, I try to work seven days a week, so as not to lose touch with that world. Within that, I`m flexible on hours and output.

I make a note, set it aside, and hope it makes sense when the time comes to look at it again.

I also wanted Parker to operate in the Internet age without losing being Parker. He`s always operated in the world without really being with the world, and cyberspace means that the rest of us are more and more living the same way.

All of the changes in publishing since 1960 are significant. There are far fewer publishers.

The problem was, he had to resolve, one way or another. If he got over the trauma, he`d become just another private eye, and I couldn`t use him.

I find characters who are at cross-purposes with society, or opposed to society in some way, interesting because they are by definition the underdogs.

A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview.

I used to be less flexible, but realized there was no point pushing myself, I was going to do it whether I cracked a whip over me or not.

Meehan evolved into his story. If you think of Parker as fast like a baseball or football player, Meehan is fast like a standup comic.

If you think of movie studio executives, say, as society, then I root for the independent producers.

I don`t know that any one book was of larger than normal significance in my career. My method has been more like water torture, one drop at a time.

Everybody in New York is looking for something. Once in a while, somebody finds it.

I don`t do anything about maintaining quality, I just try to tell a story in such a way as to interest myself. I leave questions of quality to others.

Sorry; I have no space left for advice. Just do it.

But the small robbery, by forcing an upgrade of defensive systems, makes the big robbery that much harder, or perhaps impossible.

If it weren`t for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn`t have any ideas at all.

When Stark isn`t off sulking somewhere, or whatever he`s doing when he won`t return my calls, I alternate between the two. That usually works well, though occasionally an idea for the wrong guy drifts through my mind.