It was one thing to use computers as a tool, quite another to let them do your thinking for you.

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

There is an old saying: In history nothing is true but the names and dates. In fiction everything is true but the names and dates. The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.

I haven't got any fan mail from Osama bin Laden. I have no reason to believe he reads my stuff I'll never decide for commercial reasons to put something in that endangers our national security. You just can't do that.

What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else.

(Stereotyping) is only for those without the imagination to see people as they are instead of being like someone else they understand.

People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?