The great thing about being a writer is that you are always recreating yourself.

Then there was the whole concept of coal mining, which is a culture unto itself, the most dangerous occupation in the world, and which draws and develops a certain kind of man.

Of course the biggest mafia in Russia has always been the government; in Soviet times, the Communist Party, and now a circle of former KGB and FSB.

I used to be treated like an idiot, now I'm treated like an idiot savant.

Mystery books. I must read a hundred a year. . . I just wish some of them were harder to figure out.

You have to be an outsider to write.

The research is the most interesting part… That’s how I work. I go some place and I walk it and I talk to people until I find what I’ve come for. Or not. Fortunately, I tend to find what I’m after.