I stood there with my foot on the running board, looking down at her, when I became aware of the paper I still clutched in my hand. I looked down at it in half surprise, then I tore it into tiny bits and scattered them in the road.
We watched them flutter in the breeze, their shining whiteness like little snowflakes settling to the ground. Her face turned back to me. Her hand went out and took mine. Her eyes were shining brightly.
My heart leaped in gladness at her touch. I looked down at her. “You didn’t answer my question back in there. Why aren’t you home with your mother?” I asked her.
Her eyes looked up into mine. They grew soft and wise with an understanding I would never know. “She told me to come down and get you,” she replied. “She said you would need me more than anyone else right now.”
I looked down at her for a moment more and then got into the car beside her. “All right, Doris,” I said slowly. “Let’s go home.”
Harold Robbins, Unguarded
On the inspiration for Never Love a Stranger:
“[The book begins with] a poem from To the Unborn by Stella Benson. There were a lot of disappointments especially during the Depression—fuck it—in everyone’s life there are disappointments and lost hope…. No one escapes. That’s why you got to be grateful every day that you get to the next.”
On writing The Betsy and receiving gifts:
“When I wrote The Betsy, I spent a lot of time in Detroit with the Ford family. The old man running the place had supplied me with Fords, a Mustang, that station wagon we still have…. After he read the book and I was flying home from New York the day after it was published, he made a phone call to the office on Sunset and asked for all the cars to be returned. I guess he didn’t like the book.”
On the most boring things in the world:
“Home cooking, home fucking, and Dallas, Texas!”
On the inspiration for Stiletto:
“I began to develop an idea for a novel about the Mafia. In the back of my head I had already thought of an extraordinary character…. To the outside world he drove dangerous, high-speed automobiles and owned a foreign car dealership on Park Avenue…. The world also knew that he was one of the most romantic playboys in New York society… What the world did not know about him was that he was a deadly assassin who belonged to the Mafia.”
On the message of 79 Park Avenue:
“Street names change with the times, but there’s been prostitution since the world began. That was what 79 Park Avenue was about, and prostitution will always be there. I don’t know what cavemen called it; maybe they drew pictures. That’s called pornography now. People make their own choices every day about what they are willing to do. We don’t have the right to judge them or label them. At least walk in their shoes before you do. 79 Park Avenue did one thing for the public; it made people think about these girls being real, not just hustlers. The book was about walking in their shoes and understanding. Maybe it was a book about forgiveness. I never know; the reader is the only one who can decide.”
Paul Gitlin (Harold’s agent) on The Carpetbaggers after first reading the manuscript:
“Jesus Christ, you can’t talk about incest like this. The publishers will never accept it. This author, Robbins, he’s got a book that reads great, but it’s a ball breaker for publishing.”
From the judge who lifted the Philadelphia ban on Never Love a Stranger, on Harold’s books:
“I would rather my daughter learn about sex from the pages of a Harold Robbins novel than behind a barn door.”
On writing essentials:
“Power, sex, deceit, and wealth: the four ingredients to a successful story.”
On the drive to write:
“I don’t want to write and put it in a closet because I’m not writing for myself. I’m writing to be heard. I’m writing because I’ve got something to say to people about the world I live in, the world I see, and I want them to know about it.”
Harold Robbins titles from RosettaBooks
79 Park Avenue
Dreams Die First
Never Leave Me
Spellbinder
Stiletto
The Betsy
The Raiders
The Adventurers
Goodbye, Janette
Descent from Xanadu
Never Love A Stranger
Memories of Another Day
The Dream Merchants
Where Love Has Gone
The Lonely Lady
The Inheritors
The Looters
The Pirate
The Dream Merchants Page 56