I've sold 11 of my books to Hollywood. There are all kinds of my books on shelves in Hollywood because the scripts didn't capture the characters.

You know you're going to get burned from time to time. It's just part of the game. So when it happens you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and forget about it because they're about to snap the ball again.

I view people two ways. They're either eye-for-an-eye people or they are turn-the-cheek people.

That's the irony in the work: the best stories are the worst things that happen. My best times were somebody else's worst.

I think there's a general misconception that anything written quickly lacks quality, and I don't believe that.

The characters I write about are very internal.

As a bassist he could never really be a sideman. He was always the anchor. He drove the beat. even if it was behind Miles Davis'a horn.