Little by little, writers develop their own styles, each as unique as a fingerprint.

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset.

A life without love is like a tree without fruit.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet.

My novels aren't really generated by a single conceptual spark; it's more a process of many different elements that come together unexpectedly over a long period of time.

Baseball and malaria keep coming back.

I enjoy bringing humanity to complex characters.

We in this country, in this generation, are, by destiny rather than choice, the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.

You know, since the 6th century, Sunni and Shia have been fighting.

Nietzsche had a little one-liner on how to choose a wife. He said, ''Are you willing to have a conversation with this woman for the next forty years?'' That's how to pick a wife.

Transition begins in forgiveness.

Definitely giving it my heart and soul from my life as I see it. That whole album [My Brother] is like that, that's how I feel.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.

I like being behind the scene.