79 Quotes by Donald E. Westlake

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

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.

If you leave me here," the guy on the floor said, "he'll kill me tomorrow morning." Parker looked at him. "So you've still got tonight," he said.

If Chester had a failing, it was that he believed people were what they thought they were.

Christmas shows us the ties that bind us together, threads of love and caring, woven in the simplest and strongest way within the family.

A grifter's got an irresistible urge to be the guy who's wise. There's nothin' to whipping a fool. Hell, fools are made to be whipped. But to take another pro. Even your partner, who knows you and has his eye on you. That's a score! No matter what happens.

New York doesn't exactly have neighborhoods, the way most cities do. What it has is closer to distinct and separate villages, some of them existing on different continents, some of them existing in different centuries, and many of them at war with one another. English is not the primary language in many of these villages, but the Roman alphabet does still have a slight edge.

The August sun, God's blood-blister...

Eyes wide and blank as the buttons on a first Communion coat.