top of page
.png){kind=small}
"If you think of movie studio executives, say, as society, then I root for the independent producers."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Society quotes
"If a moneyed man had a "corny mind, a flatterer would immediately start chasing him like a hungry hen!"
"An honest government is the childish dream of the gullible men!"
"A country where women are not free has no chance ever to be something good and respectable!"
"It is better to go near the truth and be imprisoned than to stay with the wrong and roam about freely, master Galilei. In fact, getting attached to falsity is terrible slavery, and real freedom is only next to the right."
"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
"Foulmouthed individuals seem to have their neuron systems replaced by colon structures, given that their terminology profusely consists of "sh*t and f*ck". ['Tolerance zero']"
"The walls, where there was room, were well decorated with calendars and posters showing bright, improbable girls with pumped-up breasts and no hips - blondes, brunettes and redheads, but always with this bust development, so that a visitor of another species might judge from the preoccupation of artist and audience that the seat of procreation lay in the mammaries. Alice Chicoy...who worked among the shining girls, was wide-hipped and sag-chested and she walked well back on her heels...She was not in the least jealous of the calendar girls and the Coca-Cola girls. She had never seen anyone like them, and she didn't think anyone ever had."
Explore more quotes by Donald E. Westlake
"If it weren't for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn't have any ideas at all."
"When Stark isn't off sulking somewhere, or whatever he's doing when he won't return my calls, I alternate between the two. That usually works well, though occasionally an idea for the wrong guy drifts through my mind."
"A friend of mine, now retired, was then a major exec at a major bank, and one of her jobs, the last four years, was the farewell interview."
"The many magazines, ranging from pulp to slick, that used to serve as both farm teams for writers and lures to readers, with hundreds of short stories every month, don't exist. Most of the doors for new people have been sealed."
"Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me."
"Nothing about it interested me. Or about anything else, except making up stories. If literacy weren't so nearly universal, God knows what I'd be. A drain on the State, I shouldn't wonder."
"My work schedule has changed over the years. The one constant is, when at work on a novel, I try to work seven days a week, so as not to lose touch with that world. Within that, I'm flexible on hours and output."
"I start with the story, almost in the old campfire sense, and the story leads to both the characters, which actors should best be cast in this story, and the language. The choice of words, more than anything else, creates the feeling that the story gives off."
"All of the changes in publishing since 1960 are significant. There are far fewer publishers."
bottom of page