If the storytellers told it true, all stories would end in death.

The most popular American fiction seems to be about successful people who win, and good crime fiction typically does not explore that world. But honestly, if all crime fiction was quality fiction, it would be taken more seriously.

Things seem to be at a boiling point all the time. In fact, it has been that way my whole life. I find it interesting, and I like the fact that the emotions are in your face all the time. You always know where you stand. None of that "we don't have any racial problems here" attitude that you get, say, up north. All of this is rich fodder for a crime novelist.

The reason some crime writers have a chip on their shoulder about the label is because their good books are shelved beside books about nuns and birdwatchers and cats who solve crimes. Overseas, my books are reviewed alongside those of authors like Robert Stone and Don DeLillo, and I have to live and die by that comparison. They don't ghettoize crime writers in other countries, and of course they shouldn't.

We remember when women were spoken of differently. I don't mean that we didn't speak of women sexually - that happened. It was never this crude: there wasn't the connotations, the violence. I think there's got to be a relationship between the coarsening of the culture, of which pornography was a piece of the puzzle.

Any time you have poverty, joblessness, sub-par public schools, and a lack of opportunity, you're going to have a high rate of crime.

We get schooled by the people around us, and it stays inside us deep.