Lawrence Block Quotes & Sayings

If you build a better mousetrap, Nature will build a better mouse. — Lawrence Block

You got to ask a street question to get a street answer. — Lawrence Block

As a friend of mine, herself a writer, says, 'People who spend the most meaningful hours of their lives in the exclusive company of imaginary people are apt to be a little strange' — Lawrence Block

Booze and tobacco and lots of sex. It keeps a lad young. — Lawrence Block

Is that what I am? I don't know what the hell I am anymore."
"Oh, bullshit. You're a guy, a human being. Just another poor son of a bitch who doesn't want to be alone when the sacred ginmill closes. — Lawrence Block

Take care. It seems to me that people have only been saying that phrase on parting for the past few years or so. All of a sudden everyone started to say it, as if the whole country abruptly recognized that ours is a world which demands caution. — Lawrence Block

Man, I so sick of dinosaurs. They wasn't extinct, I'd go out an' kill 'em myself. — Lawrence Block

Ideas come to people who are receptive to them. — Lawrence Block

Life, I'd heard someone say, is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. It seemed to me that it was both at once, even for those of us who don't do much of either. — Lawrence Block

As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don't have to give a rat's ass about. — Lawrence Block

Well, you live and you learn, and generally in that order. I — Lawrence Block

There is no better way to learn how to write than by writing a novel. — Lawrence Block

If fate sends you a lemon, use it to make lemonade. — Lawrence Block

I wanted a drink. There were a hundred reasons why a man will want a drink, but I wanted one now for the most elementary reason of all. I didn't want to feel what I was feeling, and a voice within was telling me that I needed a drink, that I couldn't bear it without it.
But that voice is a liar. You can always bear the pain. It'll hurt, it'll burn like acid in an open wound, but you can stand it. And, as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going. — Lawrence Block

I've always essentially been a New Yorker. — Lawrence Block

I don't know about the rest of the country but in New York more people have learned anonymity from rent control than ever discovered it in a twelve-step program. — Lawrence Block

Faith and fear, they tell me, can't coexist. I try to practice by doing what I'm afraid to do, and I manage (now and then, anyway) by means of faith. Faith that I will do myself more good than harm by the risks I am willing to take as a writer. And faith, finally, that the best service I can do myself is to do the best and most honest work of which I am capable. — Lawrence Block

If you cannot stand a spoon upright in the cup, then the coffee is too weak. — Lawrence Block

Everybody's weird, fundamentally everybody is a snap. Sometimes it's a sexual thing and sometimes it's a different kind of weirdness, but one way or another everybody's nuts. — Lawrence Block

I don't plan an awful lot in life just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction. — Lawrence Block

Life, I announced, is not a B picture. Well, it ain't no De Mille epic either, boss. Things'll work out, Bernie. — Lawrence Block

I dialed it now, and the machine picked up. I listened to a dead man's voice. I hung up, wondering how long it would be before someone unplugged the machine, how long before the telephone company cut off the phone service.
You don't die all at once. Not anymore. These days you die a little at a time. — Lawrence Block

I rode to the fourth floor, poked around until I found the stairway, and walked down a flight. I almost always do this and I sometimes wonder why. I think someone must have done it in a movie once and I was evidently impressed, but it's really a waste of time, especially when the elevator in question is self-service. — Lawrence Block

When you get older, keeping the private stuff private seems less important. — Lawrence Block

Novels are written - as life is lived - One Day At A Time. — Lawrence Block

I really don't write much anymore, and I'm not uncomfortable with that. I've tried writing and the sentences come out fine, but I write a few pages and I don't want to go on. — Lawrence Block

Everybody has mean little places inside himself. — Lawrence Block

My mother's father was from Sligo, and he used to say it was the hardest thing in the world to find a man alive in Dublin who wasn't in the GPO during the Easter Rising. Twenty brave men marched into that post office, he said, and thirty thousand marched out. — Lawrence Block

A treat indeed, to read Raymond Chandler for the first time. I almost envied the man, — Lawrence Block

Donald Westlake's Parker novels are among the small number of books I read over and over. Forget all that crap you've been telling yourself about War and Peace and Proust-these are the books you'll want on that desert island. — Lawrence Block

The New Your energy goes beyond anything you'll find anywhere else. It's too much for some people and it grinds them down, but it lifts up and animates the rest of us. — Lawrence Block

So many changes, eating away at the world like water dripping on a rock. — Lawrence Block

If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass. — Lawrence Block

It was still there, a low-grade fever in the blood, an itch somewhere down beneath the skin, where you couldn't scratch it. — Lawrence Block

You know what I realized?" "What?" "Most of the people I know are dead. I guess that happens — Lawrence Block

Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day. — Lawrence Block

WHEN you hit a gay bar in the middle of a weekday afternoon you wonder why they don't call it something else. — Lawrence Block

Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else. — Lawrence Block

I find him whelming, personally. Neither overwhelming nor underwhelming but somewhere in the middle. — Lawrence Block

The short story, I should point out, is perforce a labor of love in today's literary world; there's precious little economic incentive to write one ... — Lawrence Block

I thought, My name is Matt and I'm an alcoholic. A woman I know got killed last night. She hired me to keep her from getting killed and I wound up assuring her that she was safe and she believed me. And her killer conned me and I believed him, and she's dead now, and there's nothing I can do about it. And it eats at me and I don't know what to do about that, and there's a bar on every corner and a liquor store on every block, and drinking won't bring her back to life but neither will staying sober, and why the hell do I have to go through this? Why? — Lawrence Block

He was always inclined to be a moody man, very exuberant when things were going right, very depressed when they weren't. — Lawrence Block

Your unconscious mind takes the things you can't handle and plays with them while you sleep until some of the sharp corners are worn off. — Lawrence Block

Cain said he wasn't Abel's keeper. Are those our only choices, keeper or killer? — Lawrence Block

Come on in," Elaine said. "She's already here. Pam, this is Mr. Scudder, Matthew Scudder. Matt, I'd like you to meet Pam. — Lawrence Block

He's got a new BMW now, thanks to the Galaxy. He can't spell it, but he can drive it like crazy. — Lawrence Block

Asking me why I did or didn't do anything is generally pointless. How do I know? And asking me what I'll do in the future is even less rewarding. — Lawrence Block

Every year there's a few more things I'm not sure of. I've decided that a wide-ranging uncertainty is the mark of the true maturity of man. — Lawrence Block

I think persistence in the face of adversity is an essential part of a writer's job description. If you don't care enough about it to avoid being easily disheartened that way, you really should be doing something else. — Lawrence Block

Martin Greer Galton had ceased troubling his fellow man in 1964, when a cerebral aneurysm achieved what most of his acquaintances and business associates would have dearly loved to have had a hand in. — Lawrence Block

We're all whirling merrily through the void on a dying planet, and gay people are just doing their usual number, being shamelessly trendy as always. Right out in front on the cutting edge of death. — Lawrence Block

When someone put money in your hand you closed your fingers around it and put it in your pocket. — Lawrence Block

The less attention I pay to what people want and the more attention I pay to just writing the book I want to write, the better I do. — Lawrence Block

Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for. — Lawrence Block

Being broke is not a crime, nor is it proof of one's inadequacy as a writer or as a human being. If you go around with an attitude of implicit apology for being temporarily without funds, it's going to do you more harm than good. — Lawrence Block

She knew how much I needed her. And now she was teasing, playing games. I looked at her and watched her turn into a sex symbol in front of my eyes. She did not look sweet and virginal and lovely anymore. I looked at the very simple summer dress and saw breasts and belly and hips. I looked at her eyes and saw lust as naked as my own. — Lawrence Block

I stood for a moment, letting my ears do the walking, and then I gave the bell a thorough ring and waited thirty thoughtful seconds before ringing it again.
And that, let me assure you, is not a waste of time. Public institutions throughout the fifty states provide food and clothing and shelter for lads who don't ring the bell first. — Lawrence Block

You know, it was a revelation to me to learn that I don't have to be comfortable. Nowhere is it written that I must be comfortable. I always thought if I felt nervous or anxious or unhappy I had to do something about it. But I learned that's not true. Bad feelings won't kill me. Alcohol will kill me, but my feelings won't. — Lawrence Block

Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not. — Lawrence Block

all six of them a license." "That — Lawrence Block

She made love with the freshness of an impatient virgin and the ingenuity of a sex-scarred whore. — Lawrence Block

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken. — Lawrence Block

Everybody tells me what a timesaver the Internet is, and how they can't believe they ever got along without it. And I know what they mean, but every time I use it I wind up wondering what people did with their spare time before computers came along to suck it all up. — Lawrence Block

You show up at these meetings to stay sober and you walk out with a fucking education. — Lawrence Block

To say I drank my way into marriage isn't much of an exaggeration, and it's none at all to say I drank my way out of it. — Lawrence Block

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid. — Lawrence Block

I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees. — Lawrence Block

Stories are like assholes. Everybody's got one and most of 'em stink. — Lawrence Block

I haven't got anything against cats. I haven't got anything against elk either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to keep one in the store so I'll have a place to hang my hat. — Lawrence Block

I settled for a cup of coffee. Only it wasn't coffee. It was a coffee substitute made by grinding up dandelion roots. The idea was that it wouldn't keep you awake, and it's always seemed to me that the only thing coffee really has going for it is that it will keep you awake. — Lawrence Block

Forcible sodomy and illegal entry, you put them both down and you get a jury confused. They figure it's two ways of saying the same thing. — Lawrence Block

People go through changes and life does the damnedest things to us all. — Lawrence Block

I haven't seen her in five years. Well, hell, I haven't had a cigarette in twelve, and I damn well wanted one for a minute there. Sometimes I don't think anybody ever gets over anything. — Lawrence Block

But whenever there's the right kind of nut making headlines, a Slasher or an Icepick Prowler, a certain number of people get pistol permits and a certain number of others buy illegal guns. Then some of them get drunk and shoot their wives. None of them ever seems to wind up nailing the Slasher. I — Lawrence Block

What time is it?"
"Time?"
"Time."
"Oh," She said. "A quarter to four. Mr. Markham, something terrible has happened."
She didn't have to tell me that. Something perfectly dreadful had happened, by God. Someone had called me in the middle of the bloody night. — Lawrence Block

Sometimes it's a dog-eat-dog world and the rest of the time it's the other way around. — Lawrence Block

We turned out to be good for each other. For a stitch of time all the hard questions went away and hid in dark places. — Lawrence Block

I can't persuade myself that one of the problems facing the planet today might be a shortage of books by me. — Lawrence Block

When writing functions in this fashion as self-directed psychotherapy, we err if we demand that people be entertained and enlightened by the process. — Lawrence Block

Many of us may not know too much about our characters, but we tell the reader altogether too much. — Lawrence Block

The novel, I submit, is not merely the ultimate goal. It is also the place to start. — Lawrence Block

Fiction writing starts off by requiring the towering arrogance that enables one to sit down at the typewriter in the belief that someone somewhere will actually be eager to read the productions of our own private imaginations. But that arrogance must be buffered by the humility that leads us to learn our craft and strive to make our work comprehensible and inviting and accessible to the reader. — Lawrence Block

- And I won't deny your neighbors will take you more seriously if you tell them you've written a novel. (Of course if that's the main concern, just go and tell them. You don't have to write anything. Just lie a little. Don't worry - they won't beg to read the manuscript.) — Lawrence Block

People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things. — Lawrence Block

I heard the pitter patter of little old feet. — Lawrence Block

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else. — Lawrence Block

There are eight million stories in the naked city," he intoned. "You remember that program? Used to be on television some years back."
"I remember."
"They had that line at the end of every show. 'There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.' "
"I remember it."
"Eight million stories," he said. "You know what you got in this city, this fucked-up toilet of a naked fucking city? You know what you got? You got eight million ways to die. — Lawrence Block

One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing - writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off. — Lawrence Block

Fiction works because a part of the mind forgets that it's fiction while we're reading it. — Lawrence Block

It's enough of a strain killing people. I've no time for deer.
Mick Ballou — Lawrence Block

Fuck you! I hope you die!"
"Everybody Dies," I said. "So fuck you. — Lawrence Block

My glass was empty. I poured more scotch into it, took a small sip, and all at once the silly thing was empty again.
Strange.
Then it was full again.
And then it was empty again.
Strange, I thought. Fool glass must have a hole in it. Scotch disappears the instant it's poured.
Strange.
Then I was stretched out on the bed, too tired and too drunk to bother removing my shoes. My eyes closed themselves and the world crept away on little cat feet, leaving me floating in the middle of the air. — Lawrence Block

As my grandmother used to say, if you've got nothing good to say about someone, let's hear it. — Lawrence Block

Forgiving himself came easy to him. His, he'd come to realize, was a forgiving nature. — Lawrence Block

Being dead means never having to do anything sneaky. — Lawrence Block

I try to avoid eating endangered species, let alone mythical ones. You — Lawrence Block

Why on earth should I care whether people read me with their eyes or their ears? — Lawrence Block

This church was open and seemingly unattended, and it was a throwback in another way as well. The candles in the little side altars were real ones, actual wax candles that burned with an open flame. Lots of churches have switched over to electrified altars. You drop your quarter in the slot and a flame-shaped bulb goes on and stays on for your quarter's worth of time. It's like a parking meter, and if you stay too long they tow away your soul. — Lawrence Block