People always come up to me and say, 'you should do standup.' It's nice to discover things about yourself. That keeps everything lively and fun.

The hardest mysteries to solve are the ones you come to near the end, because there isn't enough evidence, not enough to unravel, unless somehow you can go all the way back to the beginning - rewind and replay everything.

The best way to get kids reading more is to give them books that they'll gobble up - and that will make them ask for another.

I think e-books are terrific in their own right. I love being able to get on a plane and basically carry around seven books and it weigh 10 ounces.

Max: "Fang! This is a huge break! Of course we should go check it out!" Fang: "But we're grounded." Max and Fang: (stare at each other for a second and burst out laughing)

I do 30 to 40 books a year, so it's a fair amount of reading. Back and forth between nonfiction and fiction. I usually have three or four things that are open on my desk, on my bed, on audiobook in the car.

I'm big on having a blistering pace. That's one of the hallmarks of what I do, and that's not easy. I never blow up cars and things like that, so it's something else that keeps the suspense flowing. I try not to write a chapter that isn't going to turn on the movie projector in your head.