I feel I'm functioning at some level as a journalist because even though I write fiction, I'm trying to get the world accurate.

There is no client as scary as an innocent man.

If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?

I think books with weak or translucent plots can survive if the character being drawn along the path is rich, interesting and multi-faceted. The opposite is not true.

You can't patch a wounded soul with a Band-Aid.

You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.

I think I would spend the first 30 weeks not writing, just clearing my head and seeing parts of the world I haven't seen and going back to places I have seen and love.

I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.

There is nothing you can do about the past except keep it there.

I'm a disciple of Raymond Chandler, who said in his essays that there's a quality of redemption in anything that can be called art.

Any writer would rather dig into character than dig into fancy plots.

The salvation of all the elect is not less certain than the power of God is invincible.

Prayer is not only for answers but a spiritual act.

If God had a flower for each moment He thought of you, the whole universe would be a garden.

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry.

The quarterback is in charge of the chuck wagon. He's handing it out here and there, but he can't just throw it out there indiscriminately or the wolves will get him.

If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.

I did. I still do. It's kind of grown to a "Ren and Stimpy" kind of lab, which is fun.

Also, I've already won all the awards.

Any time I have seen someone accomplishing something magnificent, they have been a monomaniac with a mission. A single-minded individual with a passion.

I dinna trust him," said Slightly Mad Angus. "He reads books an' such.