Donald E. Westlake quotes

Donald E. Westlake was an American novelist, celebrated for his crime fiction and darkly comic stories. His work features complex characters and clever, unpredictable plots, often centered around heists and capers. He wrote more than a hundred novels, many under various pseudonyms, and received numerous prestigious awards. Here are 37 of his quotes:

Nobody gets everything in this life. You decide your priorities and you make your choices. I'd decided long ago that any cake I had would be eaten. (Donald E. Westlake)
In order to hold your faith intact be sure it's kept unsullied by fact. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
What did Jesus Christ say to the Teamsters? 'Do nothing till I get back. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Eyes wide and blank as the buttons on a first Communion coat. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
If Chester had a failing, it was that he believed people were what they thought they were. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
New York doesn't exactly have neighborhoods, the way most cities do. What it has is closer to distinct and separate villages, some of them existing on different continents, some of them existing in different centuries, and many of them at war with one another. English is not the primary language in many of these villages, but the Roman alphabet does still have a slight edge. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
It was apparent ... that, all over America, thousands of people threw down a book or got up from a television show and said, 'I can write better than that!' It was amazing how many of them were wrong. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Brian had all that day to figure out what was going on, and yet he didn't. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Who's a boy gonna talk to if not his mother? View quote
Donald E. Westlake
My mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
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. (Donald E. Westlake)
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. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
I loved it, but social reality impeded. Now I wander in here at 9 in the morning or so, and come back for a while in the afternoon. I am a very lenient boss. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Sorry; I have no space left for advice. Just do it. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
I believe my subject is bewilderment. But I could be wrong. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
I was once - and only once - asked if I could have had a writing career without the movies. That stopped me, and I was very happy to have to think about it, and decide I knew the answer. Yes; not this career, but a career. Without movie money, either from writing screenplays or selling rights to novels, I could still have enough of a career that I could support myself and not have to work at some other job, but it would be, shall we say, a less lavish lifestyle. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
The August sun, God's blood-blister... View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Life is a slow-motion avalanche, and none of us are steering. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
I've used pseudonyms for various reasons. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
I make a note, set it aside, and hope it makes sense when the time comes to look at it again. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Everybody in New York is looking for something. Once in a while, somebody finds it. (Donald E. Westlake)
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. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
If it weren't for received ideas, the publishing industry wouldn't have any ideas at all. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
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. View quote
Donald E. Westlake
Seem to be telling this, but really telling that. Three-dimensional writing, like three-dimensional chess. Nabokov was the other master of that. You could learn something from Nabokov on every page he ever wrote. View quote
Donald E. Westlake