You have to be a ruthless editor of your own prose. Over the years, I've learned that the best way to incorporate research into the narrative is to turn it into action.

There is no frigate like a book and no harbor like a library, where those who love books but can't afford their own complete collections, or those who need a computer, or kids who need a safe place to read after school, or moms with toddlers who want their babies to learn to read, can all come together and share in a great community resource.

I had wanted to write Ghost Country for a long time, but it wouldn't work.

Heart surgeons do not have the world's smallest egos: when you ask them to name the world's three leading practitioners, they never can remember the names of the other two.

I think Peter Dickinson is hands down the best stylist as a writer and the most interesting storyteller in my genre.

But what I've learned is, when your adrenaline is flowing, you can do a lot. I'm not very physical, but once some punks were trying to break into my house and I chased them down.

I was reading Raymond Chandler very much with the feminist eye. In six of his seven novels, it's the woman who presents herself in a sexual way, who is the main bad person. And then you start reading more fiction, whether crime fiction or straight fiction, it's just bad girls trying to make good boys do bad things, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. The woman that thou gavest me made me do it, Adam says to God.