Authors want their names down in history; I want to keep the smoke coming out of the chimney.

My father was Catholic, my mother was Protestant, and because of that I got Christened in both churches, so I've got all these names... but my Dad always called me Mick.

Oh yeah, I smoke like a chimney,

Where I am they can smell out a hurricane. My house survived Hurricane Hazel, but it didn't get past Hugo.

Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.