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" I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books. "

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" I don't have any of the modern electronics at all. I know the Internet would be a distraction. I would see things that interested me and never get back to writing. "

" I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write. "

" Writing screenplays is not my business. I've written half a dozen, and maybe half of those were made. But it was never a satisfying experience. It was just work. You're an employee. You would be told what to do. Studio execs would cross out my dialogue and put in their dialogue. "

" I'm not going to write for posterity. I'm going to write to make a buck. "

" I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There were a lot of pulp magazines, like 'Dime Western' and '10 Story Western' that were still being published. The better ones paid two cents a word. And I thought, 'I like Westerns.' "

" I would say just start writing. You've got to write every day. Copy someone that you like if you think that perhaps could become your sound, too. I did that with Hemingway, and I thought I was writing just like Hemingway. Then all of a sudden it occurred to me - he didn't have a sense of humor. I don't know anything he's written that's funny. "

" A friend of mine who is in the publishing business knew I was writing a book, and he said, 'Have you said anything yet about the good guy? Because I know you spend so much time with the bad guys.' Because they're fun. So then you have to make the good guy fun, in order to compete. That's the challenge. "

" I get letters. I get several a week, I think. A lot of people want a picture, a lot of people just want an autograph. "

" It took me 20 years to buy an electric typewriter, because I was afraid it would be too sensitive. I like to bang the keys. I'm doing action stories, so that's the way I like to do it. "

" I don't want to write any more screenplays, I'll tell you that right now. It's a waste of time. You've got too many people who think they have the answer to a good screenplay and they don't. No one knows. "

" I don't get in a position to be frightened. I don't do anything dangerous, and I always pay my bills. "

" Everyone has his own sound. I'm not going to presume how to tell anybody how to write. "

" There are cities that get by on their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains or oceans, rockbound or with palm trees. And there are cities like Detroit that have to work for a living. "

" If I just sit here, what am I going to do? I don't have a trade. I don't teach or anything. I just love to make up characters and gradually build a story around them. "

" If you take a few days to write an outline, you're just making up scenes that you think will work, that you think will be interesting. But as you write it, other ideas occur - better ideas that have to do with what you're writing. "

" Really, when I write a book I'm the only one I have to please. That's the beauty of writing a book instead of a screenplay. "

" Writing on the beach is not what it's cracked up to be. The sand blows, and you perspire, and the page gets all blotty and messed up, so I don't do that anymore. "

" I think any writer is a fool if he doesn't do it for money. There needs to be some kind of incentive in addition to the project. It all goes together. It's fun to sit there and think of characters and get them into action, then be paid for it. "

" Sometimes female characters start out as the wife or girlfriend, but then I realize, 'No, she's the book,' and she becomes a main character. I surrender the book to her. "

" There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it. "

" My purpose is to entertain and please myself. I feel that if I am entertained, then there will be enough other readers who will be entertained, too. "

" My characters have to talk, or they're out. They audition in early scenes. If they can't talk, they're given less to do, or thrown out. "

" I used to be able to write five pages a day, every day, no problem. Now a good day is five or four pages, and that's from 9:30 A.M. until 6 P.M. "

" I do this a lot with names. I'll start with a name, and then for some reason he won't talk much, or he's older than I pictured him just because of a name I give him. So then I finally get the right name, and I can't shut the guy up. This always happens. There's always a character who gives me trouble that way. "

" Never open a book with weather. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want. "

" When I get an idea for a book, something appeals to me, it's usually a character. I'll see a picture of a female marshal in front of the courthouse in Miami and she's got a shotgun on her hip and it goes up on an angle. And she's good-looking. And I say, 'I've got to use her.' "

" The truth is that the writers who most influenced me weren't people categorized as crime writers. I'd say I learned more from John O'Hara, who isn't much read today but whose short stories I really admired, and Hemingway, who I think has lasted pretty good. "

" To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing. "

" I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.' "

" There are 500 million people on Facebook, but what are they saying to each other? Not much. "