Quotes by Robert Parker

“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.”

“Being a professor and working are not the same thing. The academic community is composed largely of nitwits. If I may generalize. People who dont know very much about what matters very much, who view life through literature rather than the other way around.”

“I have reached the point where I know that as long as I sit down to write, the ideas will come. What they will be, I dont know.”

“I hereby resign from Prudential Insurance Company of America. As I look back over my years with the company, I note there have been three of them.”

“Send it to someone who can publish it. And if they wont publish it, send it to someone else who can publish it! And keep sending it! Of course, if no one will publish it, at that point you might want to think about doing something other than writing.”

“They give me the money, I give them the book. Having input into the adaptation would be kind of like selling a house and coming back three years later and saying, Paint it this color!”

“Their Spenser, Robert Urich, is big, graceful, good-looking and young (a runner-up in the Robert B. Parker look-alike contest).”

“After my best side again, arent you?”

“I dont imagine I would have chosen to spend the last twenty-six years of my life writing about a character whose values and virtues I disdained.”

“Would you care to publish this? Sincerely, Robert B. Parker.”