They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly.

When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?'

With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the scene pop.

Nuts don’t come in bunches. Only grapes do.

Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing.

There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting.

I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers.

Catholics don't scream about Jesus, they scream about the bishop.

Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations.

You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life.

Gonna rain like a cow pissin' on a flat rock" [drugstore clerk to detective Virgil Flowers] Dark of the Moon, p.7

A tender sadness drops upon my soul, like the soft twilight dropping on the world.

The lucky man is he who knows how much to leave to chance.

Very well. I understand. Just ... shut up!

The most difficult thing for me is to leave the New Jersey Devils, a great organization that I have a lot of respect for, and our fans that have been great to me.

It's not easy to know who you are and it's very painful and takes a lot of time and that is why a lot of people don't want to put in the effort.

There is no need to search for global solutions, apart from an absolute necessity to destroy the idea that such things exist.

I've never done too much inquiry into angels.

To believe in yourself and to follow your dreams... This is success!

I'll always have a baby face.

You preserve your shame but you kill your glory.