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" If you have to pay the bills, and you write something you're not proud of, use a pen-name for that. "

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" I really believe that everyone has a talent, ability, or skill that he can mine to support himself and to succeed in life. "

" I don't write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing. "

" Civilization rests on the fact that most people do the right thing most of the time. "

Do The Right Thing

" The hands of every clock are shears, trimming us away scrap by scrap, and every time piece with a digital readout blinks us towards implosion. "

" In my books, I never portray violence as a reasonable solution to a problem. If the lead characters in the story are driven to it, it's at the extreme end of their experience. "

" I have to admit that when I watch a movie in which there is no moral context for the violence - I find that offensive. I think that's potentially damaging to society. "

" My wife is my first audience. She's a tough lady, so I can't say that I ever scare her. Except, of course, when she sees me the way I look before breakfast. "

" The only reason I would write a sequel is if I were struck by an idea that I felt to be equal to the original. Too many sequels diminish the original. "

" If I drive myself to the brink of my ability, then I don't get stale or bored. "

" If you want to publish two books a year under your own name and your publisher doesn't, maybe you need a different publisher. "

" Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled. "

" Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish. "

" One of the things I like enormously about Bob Weinstein is that that he's the only studio head I have ever known who will change his mind and say he was wrong. "

" Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid. "

" I do give books as gifts sometimes, when people would rather have one than a new Ferrari. "

" There's sometimes a weird benefit to having an alcoholic, violent father. He really motivated me in that I never wanted to be anything like him. "

" I have avoided becoming stale by putting a little water on the plate, lying on the plate, and having myself refreshed in a toaster oven for 23 minutes once every month. "

" I've got a long list of books I wish I'd never written-and I've kept them all out of print for the past 20 years. "

" I have been reading Stephen King since CARRIE and hope to read him for many years to come. "

" Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love. "

" I believe that I was a dog in a past life. That's the only thing that would explain why I like to snack on Purina Dog Chow. "

" We are coming out of a century that was taught that one way of looking at the world, that one form of behavior, is as valid as another. The idea of true evil has been blown away. "

" If something in your writing gives support to people in their lives, that's more than just entertainment-which is what we writers all struggle to do, to touch people. "

" A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power. "

" I've not seen in my lifetime any politician who is a heroic figure. The manipulation that all politicians use on one level or another is so transparent. "

" Vladimir Nabokov said the two great evils of the 20th century were Marx and Freud. He was absolutely correct. "

" I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it. "

" I think it's perfectly just to refuse service to anyone based on behavior, but not based on race or religion. "

" When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks. "

" Every book has some real life in it. I was never pursued by an evil twin clone, but everything else in MR. MURDER was pretty much out of my own life. "