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.

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.

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 prince need take little account of conspiracies if the people are disposed in his favor.

You will learn no more once you have decided you know

The art of conversation lies in listening.

I bare witness that our living hope is in Jesus Christ.. I testify that with Christ, darkness cannot succeed.

Saint George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon he drank a pint of English ale out of an English flagon.

It's rarely talked about, but hunting for sport is just about as vile as we humans get.

I start thinking about the next movie before it's a success, so I can never have one moment of happiness or peace. I'm instantly thinking about the next one.

A brand that stands for what all brands stand for stands for nothing much.

The sun has already set on the days we made those choices. We must concentrate on what we can do tomorrow; we can't relive yesterday.