If you build a better mousetrap, Nature will build a better mouse. Lawrence Block More Quotes by Lawrence Block More Quotes From Lawrence Block If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass. Lawrence Block darkwritinglying I’ve tried writing and the sentences come out fine, but I write a few pages and I don’t want to go on. Lawrence Block goes-onwantwriting This church was open and seemingly unattended, and it was a throwback in another way as well. The candles in the little side altars were real ones, actual wax candles that burned with an open flame. Lots of churches have switched over to electrified altars. You drop your quarter in the slot and a flame-shaped bulb goes on and stays on for your quarter's worth of time. It's like a parking meter, and if you stay too long they tow away your soul. Lawrence Block parking-metersflamesreal One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else. Lawrence Block serendipitymindorder Stories are like assholes. Everybody's got one and most of 'em stink. Lawrence Block stinkemsstories And, as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going. Lawrence Block reliefpainlong When you get older, keeping the private stuff private seems less important. Lawrence Block importantseemsstuff Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day. Lawrence Block democracycitiesnew-york Man, I so sick of dinosaurs. They wasn't extinct, I'd go out an' kill 'em myself. Lawrence Block emssickmen I don't know about the rest of the country but in New York more people have learned anonymity from rent control than ever discovered it in a twelve-step program. Lawrence Block new-yorkcountrypeople Everybody's weird, fundamentally everybody is a snap. Sometimes it's a sexual thing and sometimes it's a different kind of weirdness, but one way or another everybody's nuts. Lawrence Block differentnutsway Booze and tobacco and lots of sex. It keeps a lad young. Lawrence Block boozeyoungsex 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. Lawrence Block noiruseneeds To say I drank my way into marriage isn't much of an exaggeration, and it's none at all to say I drank my way out of it. Lawrence Block exaggerationmy-wayway New York is an ugly city, a dirty city... But there is one thing about it. Once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. Lawrence Block new-yorkhomedirty I don't plan an awful lot in life just as I don't plan an awful lot in my fiction. Lawrence Block awfulplansfiction Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not. Lawrence Block choicesevilgiving I haven't got anything against cats. I haven't got anything against elk either, but that doesn't mean I'm going to keep one in the store so I'll have a place to hang my hat. Lawrence Block elkcatmean I've always essentially been a New Yorker. Lawrence Block new-yorkers My mother's father was from Sligo, and he used to say it was the hardest thing in the world to find a man alive in Dublin who wasn't in the GPO during the Easter Rising. Twenty brave men marched into that post office, he said, and thirty thousand marched out. Lawrence Block eastermotherfather
