But what I didn't recognize when I was much younger was this sort of...when you're on, when you're really on, go at it.

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.

Everyone I know who used to be in the intelligence community is moving into the corporate world.

Ambiguity depletes as your budget rises.

I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?

You have to know human behaviour … And the quality of your writing is absolutely capped at your understanding of human behaviour. You’ll never write above what you know about people.

The people in the Philippines are so extraordinarily nice.

No one can help you write. No one can teach you how to write.

Different people work different ways.

Fear changes everything. We're animals, and when we get afraid we act like animals. I'm not exempt from that.

I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.

When you truly love someone, you don't want anything except giving everything you have.

That's the thing about being a criminal, " Kat told her. "Nothing ever goes according to plan.

in order to isolate what was possible, you had to eliminate everything that was impossible

It is only necessary to destroy in oneself the roots of those motives which determine a man's course, in order to enjoy the omnipotence and immunity of a god.

[At a musical concert:] . . . the music's pure algebra of enchantment.

Love is the core of everything - nothing survives without it.

The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.

To me there is a name for each person. I think it’s marvelous to have a name. A woman is not a woman. It’s either Gena or my mother or some other person.

I think that Phish has been a band, we've all had- I've had a great life growing up and everybody in my band's had a really good life, none of us have got anything to complain about at all.

Ive got Arabic music in my blood.