One begins a journey with an eye on one’s destination. Somewhere along the way, one learns (if one’s lucky) that it’s the journey itself that’s important. One buys a stamp album with the intention of...
Now I can’t say I approve of counterfeit stamps. But it’s hard for me to work up a lot of indignation at a forger who’s been dead for the better part of a century. I wouldn’t want to buy a fake sold a...
My glass was empty. I poured more scotch into it, took a small sip, and all at once the silly thing was empty again. Strange. Then it was full again. And then it was empty again. Strange, I thought. F...
Is that what I am? I don’t know what the hell I am anymore.Oh, bullshit. You’re a guy, a human being. Just another poor son of a bitch who doesn’t want to be alone when the sacred ginmill closes.
If you cannot stand the spoon upright in the cup, then the coffee is too weak.
If you are trying to write realistic fiction and you people it extensively with overdrawn characters, you’re working against yourself. You can occasionally get away with filling books and stories with...
I haven't seen her in five years. Well, hell, I haven't had a cigarette in twelve, and I damn well wanted one for a minute there. Sometimes I don't think anybody ever gets over anything.
Halfway home I stopped at a deli and had soup and a sandwich and coffee. There was a bizarre story in the Post. Two neighbors in Queens had been arguing for months because of a dog that barked in its...
But whenever there’s the right kind of nut making headlines, a Slasher or an Icepick Prowler, a certain number of people get pistol permits and a certain number of others buy illegal guns. Then some o...
As a friend of mine, herself a writer, says, People who spend the most meaningful hours of their lives in the exclusive company of imaginary people are apt to be a little strange.
Any departure from reality that could easily be avoided ought to be avoided.
We're all whirling merrily through the void on a dying planet, and gay people are just doing their usual number, being shamelessly trendy as always. Right out in front on the cutting edge of death.
Too damn long.’ He put his coat on an empty chair, settled a slim attaché case on top of it, and placed a narrow-brimmed gray hat on top of the attaché case. He seated himself across the table from me...
I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it - but it seems to me it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.
I went into the bathroom and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror over the sink. All my years looked back at me, and I could feel their weight, pressing down on my shoulders. I ran the shower h...
I looked down into my glass. It held club soda, but the way I was gazing into it you’d have thought it was filled with something stronger. I used to stare like that into glasses of whiskey, as if they...
Forcible sodomy and illegal entry, you put them both down and you get a jury confused. They figure it’s two ways of saying the same thing.
You know, it was a revelation to me to learn that I don't have to be comfortable. Nowhere is it written that I must be comfortable. I always thought if I felt nervous or anxious or unhappy I had to do...
So where does the human error come in? Well, sometimes I buy a stamp and mount it in my album without troubling to log it in my catalog. And later I find it offered on somebody else’s list, and see th...