Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

Damage hardens us all. It will harden you too, when it finds you—and it will find you

We move through time like a man in a rowboat, looking back even as we move forward.

You know, being confident isn't the same as being right.

You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time.

But sometimes you can't figure everything out because you can't ever really understand other people. You can't understand why they do what they do. You just have to accept a little mystery, Ben. People are mysterious, the world is mysterious. You can't know everything. You're not supposed to. This isn't a history book. It's just the world. It's a messy place.

Genes are not simple triggers. No one is hardwired to commit murder or any other crime. Our actions are always the result of stupendously complex gene-environment interactions, and environment is likely to remain the more important influence by far.