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.

That sounds like Anthony Soprano. He has a point. I've said it before: if you're black and you sell dope, you end up in the big house; if you're white and you sell a large amount of dope, you end up visiting the White House. So it's a matter of race and it's a matter of scale, frankly.

With a 660-page book, you don't read every sentence aloud. I am terrified for the poor guy doing the audio book. But I do because I think we hear them aloud even if it's not an audio book. The other goofy thing I do is I examine the shape of the words but not the words themselves. Then I ask myself, "Does it look like what it is?" If it's a sequence where I want to grab the reader and not let the reader go then it needs to look dense. But at times I want the reader to focus on a certain word or a certain image and pause there.

Smart people sometimes get stupid, but stupid people never get smart.

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.

Bookstores never seem to know where to put me on the shelves. But I do. I love my genre and I love those writers, so I am happy to be considered a crime writer. That's what I consider myself.

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.