Robert B. Parker

"“... You have any suggestions, make them. I'm in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me. Fraser said, Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back? Hell, no, I said. Everyone else does.”"

"Yeah. Floyd is his batman. His what?Batman, like in the British army, each officer had a batman, a personal servant. You spend too much time reading, Spenser. You know more stuff that don't make you money than anybody I know."

"I think at this stage in my life I have learned that there are any number of things that men will never know, and can never hope to know, about women."

"Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block."

"I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing and when I accepted that and found the way to do it then I was able to write."

"See, being a person is kind of random and arbitrary business. You may have noticed that. And you need to believe in something to keep it from being too random and arbitrary to handle. Some people take religion, or success, or patriotism, or family, but for a lot of guys those things don't work. A guy like me. I don't have religion or family that sort of thing. So you accept some system of order, and you stick to it."