Donald E. Westlake

“Good God!” he said. “Are you a faculty wife?”

— Donald E. Westlake

I love Hammett, never liked Chandler - I'm one of the few.

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

“Real life. The greatest interactive fiction of them all.”

— Donald E. Westlake

The trouble with real life is, there's no reset button.

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

I have no known marketable skills.

— Donald E. Westlake

With writing, I prefer the solo effort, but when a team is working right, as it did on 'The Grifters,' boy, it's…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Mr. Dortmunder, this is too good a story to just jump in and tell the end.” Dortmunder hated stories that were that…

— Donald E. Westlake

Westlake is allusive, indirect, referential, a bit rococo, Stark strips his sentences down to the necessary information.

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

What did Jesus Christ say to the Teamsters? 'Do nothing till I get back.

— Donald E. Westlake

Whenever things sound easy, it turns out there's one part you didn't hear.

— Donald E. Westlake

“Probably nobody ever jogs toward the room where they will write their suicide note,”

— Donald E. Westlake

In a funny way, the stories keep themselves alive by emerging from one another. I like that.

— Donald E. Westlake

The only thing I learned from the architecture is keep the bathroom and the kitchen near each other, so you don't have…

— Donald E. Westlake

“They turned and found themselves facing a bullet head on an ICBM body lumpily stuffed into a black shirt and a brown…

— Donald E. Westlake

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink…

— Donald E. Westlake

“But other things had added to Jerry’s present weird mood, his new view of himself as someone who’d suddenly found he was…

— Donald E. Westlake

I don't think I ever have trouble with writer's block. It's different when you make it up as you go - that…

— Donald E. Westlake

It's so difficult, particularly with an antisocial character. It's much easier if he's already a blank page, but once you've written on…

— Donald E. Westlake

The thing that I prefer, when I'm working on a book, is to do a seven-day week, because it's easy to lose…

— Donald E. Westlake

Writing is flat, so if you only have part of one eye working, you still can do the job. It's just that…

— Donald E. Westlake

The British were doing crime stories first, but the British thing is a very different thing. There, the stories are about restoring…

— Donald E. Westlake

There are a couple of writers I admired who were very good at giving the character's emotion without stating what that emotion…

— Donald E. Westlake

One of our continuing myths was summed up in Huckleberry Finn: Our escape, what we think of as our escape, is that…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Hispanics have a long tradition of defiance against authority. Come to that, the Irish and Italians and Jews also have a long…

— Donald E. Westlake

I've had stuff of mine adapted by other people, so I've come to the conclusion that a movie is a different form…

— Donald E. Westlake

“A lady doctor in the foreground, black horn-rims and white lab coat, suddenly cried, “You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves!…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Two solid weeks of beautiful weather. Clear sunny days, low humidity, temperature in the seventies, air so brisk and clean you could…

— Donald E. Westlake

I don't think I would have been a good architect. Really, I have thought about this from time to time, and I…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Story ideas had never been a problem for him, there'd always been more ideas than time to write them, he'd reject one…

— Donald E. Westlake

Publishing is the only industry I can think of where most of the employees spend most of their time stating with great…

— Donald E. Westlake

Santa Claus is a god. He's no less a god than Ahura Mazda, or Odin, or Zeus. Think of the white beard,…

— Donald E. Westlake

My mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up.

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

“There were other ways to live. You could do something else, if you wanted. And if you had a reason.”

— Donald E. Westlake

“had been happy to play the part of a Brontë heroine if it meant she wouldn’t have to learn how to cook.”

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake