Here's my rule: You always want to pay cash for your own books, because if they look at the name on the credit card and then they look at the name on the book jacket, then there's this look of such profound sympathy for you that you had to resort to this. It really is withering.

I never laugh or smile when I am writing. When I come home for lunch after writing all morning, my wife says I look like I just came home from a funeral. This is not bragging. This is an illness.

Humor can be an incredible, lacerating and effective weapon.

Disney is just Disney. It's a company that's very good at what it does - controlling and promoting an image - until something happens that it can't control or cover up.

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.

My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water.

I've always enjoyed making people laugh. But in order for me to be funny, I have to get ticked off about something.