“My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn't ...” — Robert Crais Quote

“My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn't know what to think about me. So I became a closet writer.”

“I think every writer of detective fiction writing today has been influenced by Mr. Parker. I'm of a generation that followed Robert Parker, and it was impossible to read the genre and not be influenced by him.”

“Writing a book is a long and difficult process for me. I'm a slow writer, so I spend the year with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in my head. I was thinking about this the other day. I wrote the first book in 1987. Literally every day since that time, Elvis and Joe have been in my head. They're always there. I started these guys because I like them.”

“There is something about a closet that makes a skeleton terribly restless.”

“When I was in the closet, I had so much pressure on my shoulders. When I came out, that was actually the first moment I felt relieved of those stresses. It really showed in my skiing.”

“If you look at my body of work, there's always a dark side to my characters. They've always got a skeleton in the closet; they've always got a subtext.”