We need to do something about gun violence in America. But every time one of these things happen, we say the same thing, and then we don't seem to be able to do anything. And that needs to change.

What happened with the opioid epidemic is the Mexican cartels made a very deliberate, corporate decision to undercut the price of opioids. What they discovered was they could increase production, increase potency and decrease the price, and sell it for a third of what the Big Pharma could, or street dealers could, for Big Pharma pills. North America, and to a slightly lesser extent Europe, is being flooded with this Mexican heroin as a direct result of the attempt to undercut American pharmaceutical companies.

I never think about a movie when I'm writing a book, because I think only two things could happen and both of them are bad. You write a lousy novel and a lousy film.

A lot of times, writers are told write as big as you can, and that's not untrue. But at times I think it's better to write as small as you can, to start scenes with little personal details or people who are doing average every day human things. That, to me, lets the average reader into that person's life. "Yeah I eat breakfast. I take a shower."

If you let people believe that you are weak, sooner or later you’re going to have to kill them.

I've been writing since I was six years old. It's hard to imagine stopping. I would hate to think that I've already written my best book.

Smart people sometimes get stupid, but stupid people never get smart. Never. Ever. 'You can come down the evolutionary ladder,' Chon has observed to Ben and O; 'you can't climb up.