When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.

The truth of the matter is, you lose a parent to murder when you're 10 years old, and in fact at the time of the murder you hate your lost parent, my mother in my case.

Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist.

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

Raymond Chandler once wrote that Dashiell Hammett gave murder back to the people who really committed it.

Every one of my books is written from the viewpoint of cops, with the exception of my book Killer on the Road, which is written from the viewpoint of a serial killer.

As a kid, I sensed history going on all around me, but the basic thrust of it didn't move me.

I like to be alone so I can write. But focus can hurt you. I don't want to be some stress casualty in early middle age.

My mother and I will continue on some level that I haven't determined yet. I think my mother's a great character, and I have to say that giving my mother to the world has to be the biggest thrill of my writing career.

I've been tremendously moved by a bunch of odd books. Ross McDonald is very important to me. I love the Lew Archer books.

I'm getting a wider circle of fans now. More women, more middle class people.

I'm clenched down, I'm locked in on it, which is my general approach to life.

I was a WASP kid going to a high school that was 99 percent Jewish and I wanted attention and I wanted to make a spectacle of myself because I couldn't stand to be ignored.

I want to see these bad, bad, bad, bad men come to grips with their humanity.

Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.