I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.

Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something

Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is—and that reality is so horrible the lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity.

I'd never had money growing up, and it's never been that important to me, except maybe to take our kids on a nice vacation or something like that.

I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.

What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister; I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia, family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.

A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made.