I don't remember writing anything until I wrote my college application.

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.

I think it is really sad that when people lose their homes they kind of lose their minds too.

Teaching is the last refuge of feeble minds with a classical education.

I make no distinction between poetry and painting.

Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie-detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal.

I just want to make music as long as I can and reach as many people as I can.

I tell you this: Your Life proceeds out of your intentions for it.

I tell myself time heals. It really does.

If I had engaged in politics, O men of Athens, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself.

Put First Things First! These four words cover an entire philosophy which can be applied with profit by every business leader, by every executive and by every employee.

If you haven't got an idea, write a story anyway.