Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.

Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.

That's the ultimate pornography. There's nothing more pornographic than glorifying war.

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

The difference between me and you is that I do good fiction.

Fix your eyes forward on what you can do, not back on what you cannot change.

Wars are begun by frightened men.