Developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter.

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 bad news sells, money politics buys.

What advice I would give to anybody about anything. Life is a slow-motion avalanche, and none of us are steering." (When asked in an interview about what question he's tired of being asked.)

I had classical training but I don't consider myself an opera singer though.

I didn't start playing music really until I was 18/19, so it was a relatively new thing. I didn't play much music in school.

I write at all different times. I write in my bed, I write at the table. I need to get it together. I'm working on a book and working, and just jam it in whenever it makes sense.

By ourselves we suffer serious limitations. Together we can be something wonderful.

I sometimes mistake my typewriter for my teeth, because the more I bite the more my column will be read.

Doubt is an old disease. Faith is an old medicine. Compassion is an old doctor. Concern is an old nurse.

God's away, God's away, God's away on business. Business!

I get so much energy to work harder when I meet and greet younger kids because they like me with such innocent hearts.