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" If you do outline, you have to be aware of the problems that that kind of thing can cause. "

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" They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly. "

" Working for the 'Miami Herald' in 1972, I covered street action for both the Republican and Democratic national conventions in Miami and saw probably the most violent conventions ever - more violent than even 1968 in Chicago. "

" If you actually hang out in the countryside, which I did, it's actually quite peaceful. "

" I'm somewhat depressive. "

" These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt. "

" I've always had a fascination with the technical and small-scale aspects of life - the national media seem to have more interest in the sweeping political views. "

" Women just make interesting characters, especially when you're working against cliches. "

" When you're building a character, or at least when I'm building a character, you start saying, 'How am I going to make people like him?' "

" I'm an outdoors kind of guy. "

" A lot of my friends were retiring from the newspaper business, and the newspaper pensions are not enormous. "

" There are two worldviews in thriller writing: the paranoid view, like Chuck Logan's, that everything is inside a large clockwork. I like those books; they're intricate and thought out, but my view is that everything is chaotic and stupid. Chaos reigns, and civilized people do what they can to hold it back. "

" I've always thought of myself as a journalist; that was what I did. "

" The difference is this: If you write a good book, it'll get published. If you have a great screenplay, there is no guarantee. "

" Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing. "

" When I was reporting crime... I never had the sense of clockwork conspiracies or some kind of imposing order of evil. What I sensed was things just sort of falling apart. "

" You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life. "

" As a journalist, I interviewed people, and you begin to feel different rhythms in speech, and you can use those things to help carve out a character. "

" I was a newspaper editor in the Army, and I know something about the Army PR culture. "

" People in California don't live in a place so much as they do a condition. "

" Combat stress isn't the only problem for soldiers isolated in Iraq - there are family issues, re-integration issues when soldiers go home on leave, loneliness. "

" I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are. "

" My kids, who are grown now and living in L.A., are used to me packing up and taking off to somewhere weird. "

" Books set in Brooklyn and L.A. are often about people who are rootless, who want to go somewhere else. In the Midwest, though, the stories are about people who want to stay where they are - who like where they are. "

" I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers. "

" I'm just trying to normalize my life and get ready for the last 20 years or whatever I've got. It's a lot to take care of. "

" It's interesting how people are sensitive to language and how it works. "

" When you're writing two books a year, you really need some time off and don't want to use that down time for touring. I do like talking with readers, though; they can tell you important stuff. "

" I spend a lot of time wandering around the countryside just looking at people, seeing how everything fits together. "

" I once paddled a canoe the length of the Mississippi River all the way from Itasca to New Orleans. "

" There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting. "