Lawrence Block Quotes

Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.

Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.

If you cannot stand a spoon upright in the cup, then the coffee is too weak.

I wanted a drink. There were a hundred reasons why a man will want a drink, but I wanted one now for the most elementary reason of all. I didn't want to feel what I was feeling, and a voice within was telling me that I needed a drink, that I couldn't bear it without it. But that voice is a liar. You can always bear the pain. It'll hurt, it'll burn like acid in an open wound, but you can stand it. And, as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going.

One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else.

People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things.

Something I learned long ago. It is not necessary to know what a person is afraid of. It is enough to know the person is afraid.

As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don’t have to give a rat’s ass about.

Ideas come to people who are receptive to them.