The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.

In one book, CACHALOT, just for my own amusement, every character is based directly on someone I have known.

Getting inside the mind of a terrorist wasn't difficult at all. Even as children, human beings fabricate elaborate revenge fantasies. We're not a particular species. Check out popular video games.

I enjoy listening to classical music and heavy metal. I play basketball and try to go diving at least once a year. I don't really have hobbies in the traditional sense... I engage in too many activities already through the actions of my characters.

Don't try to write to the trend of the moment.

Writing allows me the time to travel and see the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I'd really like to have been Sir Richard Francis Burton, but it's the wrong century.

The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption.