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" I've always thought of myself as a journalist; that was what I did. "
John Sandford
Myself
Did
Always
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" 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. "
John Sandford
Important
Writing
You
" Most people in protest mobs are pretty sincere and don't want to fight cops or break things. "
John Sandford
People
Protest
Pretty
" The difference is this: If you write a good book, it'll get published. If you have a great screenplay, there is no guarantee. "
John Sandford
Difference
Book
Get
" A lot of cops in fiction are very depressive and are kind of downbeat, and they've got all kinds of existential angst that they're dealing with. "
John Sandford
Cops
Existential
Dealing
" Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations. "
John Sandford
Trying
Write
Sit
" 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. "
John Sandford
Turn
Ugly
Crime
" That's my sense of how crime works: that it's not any kind of calculated evil driven by the devil, but just control disintegrating. "
John Sandford
Devil
Control
Evil
" I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are. "
John Sandford
Books
Becoming
Fear
" A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it. "
John Sandford
Writing
Say
Process
" I once paddled a canoe the length of the Mississippi River all the way from Itasca to New Orleans. "
John Sandford
Way
New
Canoe
" Well, I am becoming doddering and old but I have - I'm writing two books a year now. It's like 220,000 words or something like finished, and, honest to God, I can't do that. I really do need the help of, you know, other people working with me. "
John Sandford
People
I Am
Words
" 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. "
John Sandford
Republican
Street
Miami
" Things fall apart and happen out of stupidity and carelessness. "
John Sandford
Fall
Out
Stupidity
" Most people like a little sex in their novels. "
John Sandford
Sex
Like
Little
" 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. "
John Sandford
Leave
Family
Home
" 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. "
John Sandford
Life
Care
My Life
" I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers. "
John Sandford
Things Happen
City
Strange
" I'm not saying that photographers are dumber than other people, but they are the folks who walk around with brilliant white lights in nighttime riots. "
John Sandford
Who
Lights
People
" A lot of my friends were retiring from the newspaper business, and the newspaper pensions are not enormous. "
John Sandford
Newspaper
Were
Lot
" 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. "
John Sandford
More
Media
Political
" These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt. "
John Sandford
Spontaneous
Characters
Down
" People ought to be slapped up side of the head, not always get what they expect. That's why sometimes the bad guy gets away. "
John Sandford
Always
Sometimes
People
" 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?' "
John Sandford
Start
Character
People
" I have a problem with the way the media deals with a lot of law enforcement issues. "
John Sandford
Media
Law
Law Enforcement
" 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. "
John Sandford
Want
Stay
People
" I spend a lot of time wandering around the countryside just looking at people, seeing how everything fits together. "
John Sandford
Together
Time
Seeing
" It's interesting how people are sensitive to language and how it works. "
John Sandford
People
Language
Interesting
" I'm an outdoors kind of guy. "
John Sandford
Kind
Outdoors
Guy
" Women just make interesting characters, especially when you're working against cliches. "
John Sandford
Just
Women
Interesting
" 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. "
John Sandford
People
Writing
Thought