I start work at 5 in the morning and I have a wicked insomnia problem.

I have to remind the people who put down East Coast surfing that Kelly Slater is from Florida.

American cops didn't create that atmosphere, they're the ones though who have to live with it on a daily basis. These are generalisations; you can't make generalisations about hundreds of thousands of people. The New York Police Department, for instance, has 38,000 police officers in it. But most cops, when I talk to them, desperately care about the victims of gun violence. They see it, they experience it.

I don't recognize myself. I don't know who I am anymore." And it's all fun and games until someone loses an I.

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 sat with the mothers who have lost addicted sons. I have sat with families of kids who have been killed in drug-related gang violence. I have been to the prisons. I have seen the effects. At some point in time, I felt I had to do something other than write a novel about it, that I needed to try to make some sort of contribution, at least try to make some sort of difference in the real world.

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?