“Very few of my books are about who stole the Maltese Falcon.”

“It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live.”

“'All Our Yesterdays' was unquestionably the best work I have ever done. And the reading public stayed away in droves.”