Ross Macdonald

“The dead can’t hurt you. It’s the living that you have to watch out for.”

“The problem is to make the story seem not only interesting but important.”

“The subject was a secret, and the secret was a shame.”

“For a writer, memory is a dangerous thing. It is the source of all art, but it can also be the source of all despair.”

“All my stories are about the past. They’re about what happens when the past comes back to haunt you.”

“Nothing is ever final.”

“The only real sin is to deny life.”

“Instead of a hero, you have a man who is a hero.”

“What you do to others you do to yourself.”

“Everything is connected. No man is an island.”

“Trouble is a condition of life. It is not a punishment.”

“The past is the key to the present.”

“The world is full of sleeping people, and it’s the writer’s job to wake them up.”

“A good man can be a bad man, and a bad man can be a good man.”