I look for material that both interest me and challenges me. If I am drawn to the material and I have to work hard at it, the characters and the plots reflect the hours and hours of research.

When a poor man gives something, that is a sacrifice indeed. When a rich man gives something, it hardly rises to the same level.

It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between...This train is alive with things that should be seen and heard. It's a living, breathing something -- you just have to want to learn its rhythm.

As a lawyer, as a private citizen, you see a lot of injustice. You see a lot of people who should have been punished and are not, and people who were punished wrongfully are not vindicated. Fiction is sort of a way to set the record straight, and let people at least believe that justice can be achieved and the right outcomes can occur.

In every thriller written about Washington, particularly after 9/11, there are good guys and there are bad guys, and there's no gray area at all.

Some people take 10 years to write a book and some can do one in under a year.

The real worth of a person came from how he acted during the bad times. (John Fiske)