I view people two ways. They're either eye-for-an-eye people or they are turn-the-cheek people.

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.

If at first you don't succeed, try again.If you still don't succeed, blame someone else.

I don't like it when people say, 'You're 45, so you should be wearing X and never Y.' For me, dressing is about attitude, not age.

You don't have to know everything in the world. We aren't supposed to. It makes you boring in mixed company if you can't be interested and ask questions of other people.

There once was a student named Bessor Whose knowledge grew lessor and lessor. It at last grew so small He knew nothing at all, And today he's a college professor!

I need a little sugar in my bowl and a little hot dog in my roll.

I am fat and I don't care.

What is magnificent about humans is when they decide to turn and stand. If they respond with non-violence on principle and hold their ground, they are really magnificent.

I ain't gonna get this, it's a horror movie, it's hard to act scared.

There's no greater power than the power of good-bye.

One of my favorite books [The Stand] of all time. I grew up reading it.