Donald E. Westlake

Hoke Moseley is a magnificently battered hero. Willeford brings him to us lean and hard and brand-new.

— Donald E. Westlake

In order to hold your faith intact be sure it's kept unsullied by fact.

— Donald E. Westlake

“huddled together at the left end of the bar, as silent and miserable as kittens in a sack with the bridge getting…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Why, Wally,” he said. “Except for leaving out the part where Tom continues to be a homicidal maniac, it’s all the truth.”

— Donald E. Westlake

“Two days in a row with morning appointments! What kind of evil cloud was he under here, all of a sudden?”

— Donald E. Westlake

“since dispassionate self-knowledge is not a quality held in much esteem by the majority of the human race,”

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

“I Googled it all.” Dortmunder had heard of this; some other nosey parker way to mind everybody else’s business.”

— Donald E. Westlake

The critics didn't like it at all. They felt it was crude and violent without meaning, and they dumped on it. 'Point…

— Donald E. Westlake

My work schedule has changed over the years. The one constant is, when at work on a novel, I try to work…

— Donald E. Westlake

“That was the annoying thing about the kid, who was otherwise okay. Every once in a while, he’d get it before anybody…

— Donald E. Westlake

Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You…

— Donald E. Westlake

I did the first Parker novel, in which he got caught, and the editor at Pocket Books took me to lunch and…

— Donald E. Westlake

“understood that in the business environment it was considered a gesture of civilization to offer the guest something to drink without booze…

— Donald E. Westlake

I also wanted Parker to operate in the Internet age without losing being Parker. He's always operated in the world without really…

— Donald E. Westlake

“an old Underwood office machine so big and black and ancient it looked as though it should come with a foreign correspondent…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Well, you might not think it to look at me,” Dortmunder told him, “but I got a family crest.” “Have you?” “Yeah.…

— Donald E. Westlake

Parker wasn't supposed to be a series. He was supposed to be one book, and if he was only going to be…

— Donald E. Westlake

“a whole lot of ideas isn’t a plan. A plan is a bunch of details that mesh with one another, so you…

— Donald E. Westlake

Christmas reminds us we are not alone. We are not unrelated atoms, jouncing and ricocheting amid aliens, but are a part of…

— Donald E. Westlake

“The way London carries on about the Thames you’d think it was a big deal, including lining it with all their classiest…

— Donald E. Westlake

“Beyond that he was a ghost of Uganda; in this nation of his birth he was under a death sentence for the…

— Donald E. Westlake

Those 4 guys in the late 60's who attacked a jewel merchant on New York's West 46th St. on the sidewalk, so…

— Donald E. Westlake

“A friend of mine'll follow him home tonight", Tiny said, "to get me the address. He's on the four to twelve. Around…

— Donald E. Westlake

“found himself marveling at how many different names there are in this world. All individual, most pronounceable. Think of that.”

— Donald E. Westlake

“If buyer’s remorse ever accomplished anything in this world,” Max said, “we’d all still be living in caves.”

— Donald E. Westlake

If it weren't for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn't have any ideas at all.

— Donald E. Westlake

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

— Donald E. Westlake

The tortured similes, the brooding introspection, the jaundiced view of society - nobody ever has any fun in a Ross Macdonald book.

— Donald E. Westlake

“Bobbi doubted there was ever much future for a couple who had nothing in common except heterosexuality.”

— Donald E. Westlake

“Like the residents of Brigadoon, the people in the church drifted in a long and dreamless sleep, freed of struggle and expectation.”

— Donald E. Westlake

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…

— Donald E. Westlake

“At the moment, the discussion concerned global warming. “The reason for global warming,” one of them said as Dortmunder leaned his front…

— Donald E. Westlake

A guy named Peter Rabe wrote a batch of books for Gold Medal in the '50s, and he was absolutely the single…

— Donald E. Westlake

The many magazines, ranging from pulp to slick, that used to serve as both farm teams for writers and lures to readers,…

— Donald E. Westlake

“There are no Territories to light out for, not in this century. It was no longer easy to become the new you.…

— Donald E. Westlake

“mother of the bride had been determined that her daughter would have a church wedding, and women who successfully name their infant…

— Donald E. Westlake

“The office containing these two men was of such hushed opulence that it seemed as though their words were borne to one…

— Donald E. Westlake

What advice I would give to anybody about anything. Life is a slow-motion avalanche, and none of us are steering." (When asked…

— Donald E. Westlake

Nothing about it interested me. Or about anything else, except making up stories. If literacy weren't so nearly universal, God knows what…

— Donald E. Westlake