146 Quotes by Robert B. Parker

I always loved it when I had a story to tell her, because her attention was complete and felt like sunlight.

If you want to write, write it. That’s the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don’t send it to me. Don’t show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They’re not going to publish it.

If there are no things which are important, then things are assigned importance arbitrarily and defended at great risk. Because the risk validates the importance.

I heard somebody define heaven once,” she said, looking at Pearl, “as a place where, when you get there, all the dogs you ever loved run to greet you.

Well, you give me too much credit for foresight and planning. I haven’t got a clue what the hell I’m doing.

Businessmen learn the way businessmen are supposed to be. Professors learn the way professors are supposed to be. Construction workers learn how construction workers are supposed to be. They spend their lives trying to be what they’re supposed to be and being scared they aren’t. Quiet desperation.

Teaching is too strong a word for whatever it was I did at Northeastern University.

Halfway through my steak I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar. I looked like someone who ought to eat alone. I didn’t look in the mirror again.

Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who don’t know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around.