One problem with age is that patience begins to ebb.

I still do a weekly opinion column for the Miami Herald, and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Rotten fish.

That's what people do when they find a special place that wild and full of life, they trample it to death.

Ironically, I come from a family of lawyers - my dad, my grandfather, and now my oldest son. And some of my very best friends are lawyers, though they don't resemble the ones that appear in my novels.

Obviously you have to make a profit to put out a newspaper. I'm not an idiot. But when the margins are in excess of 25 per cent you're talking about greed.

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.

My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story.