A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

If you connect emotionally with the plight of those characters, ou feel what they feel and you walk away with a sense of understanding and empathy, and hopefully, something has been illuminated for you. And I tink that's what happendd for a lot of readers with my novels.

Creating means vandalizing the lives of other people, turning them into unwilling and unwitting participants. You steal their desires, their dreams, pocket their flaws, their suffering. You take what does not belong to you. You do this knowingly.

A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.

I think the scale of the conflict [in Afghanistan] has dramatically changed in 2003. You're now facing a much more motivated, well-supported enemy. I don't see any quick end to this thing.

I don't know the nuts and bolts of writing. I studied medicine. I was a pre-med nerd. So everything I learned, I know about writing is very instinctive.

There is only one sin. and that is theft... when you tell a lie, you steal someones right to the truth.