The stock market to me was like a video game. When it went off, it was like turning the game off. It wasn't something I'd think about until I'd turn the machine on again.

All interesting heroes have an Achilles heel.

I've read that it's the smell some carnivores use to find their prey. Imagine the trembling victim trying to hide, but knowing that the smell of its own fear will kill it.

As a writer, you have to believe you're one of the best writers in the world. To sit down every day at the typewriter filled with self-doubt is not a good idea.

Doubt is faith's shadow.

You can't visit readers where you think they are. You have to invite them home to where you are and try to lure them into your universe. That's the art of storytelling.

My influence is probably more from American crime writers than any Europeans. And I hardly read any Scandinavian crime before I started writing myself. I wasn't a great crime reader to begin with.

To have the chance of being loved we have to take a chance on being destroyed inside

Everything you do leaves traces, doesn't it. The life you've lived is written all over you, for those who can read.

Love is a greater mystery than death.

Love surrounds you like steam in the shower. You can't see the individual drops, but you get warm. And wet. And clean.

Let us renew our trust in god, and go forward without fear.

Faith is not merely a journey for the feet, but it is also a journey for the heart.

I think that people are born with a certain makeup, and that we're all children of God.

No man can discover his own talents.

I try to tell a story the way someone would tell you a story in a bar, with the same kind of timing and pacing.

In the end, forever, you and I will be in Heaven or Hell. Period.

I'm a very old man. I've had lots of problems. Most of them never happened..!

Do we indulge our heart, or cater to our fear?

Deirdre Maddon has an extraordinary, almost celestial way of telling a story. There are so many great writers now - although I also want to go back and read all of Dickens again.

You are the generation that will reach the sea and hoist the flag of Palestine over Tel Aviv.