How much more money do we have to waste, how many more families have to be destroyed, how many more people have to be killed before you summon the courage to tell the truth to the American people?

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.

I have a life, I have a wife. I have an adult son who I'm very close to, and friends. I go hiking almost every day, four to six miles. In the summer, I'm out surfing or swimming. I think that real, human relationships with people mostly balance dark places in my work.

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.

I think people will be surprised at some of the things about the shootings by policemen of unarmed African-American men. But I also think it's a balanced view. Balance has become almost a dirty word these days. It seems we're supposed to pick one side or the other. But these issues are extremely complicated. I think people will be surprised at some of that.

The Americans take a product that literally grows on trees and turn it into a valuable commodity. Without them, cocaine and marijuana would be like oranges, and instead of making billions smuggling it, I’d be making pennies doing stoop labor in some California field, picking it.

I try to pay attention to language. I think that as a general rule, we as writers talk too much and we should listen more. I read my dialogue out loud to myself because I think that's when you catch the wrong notes and the wrong tones.