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" I've loved thrillers and spy stories since I was a kid. It's probably not a bad rule of thumb to write the kinds of stories you love to read. "

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" From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it's a big, bureaucratic place. Think 'post office with spies.' "

" The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American. "

" I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to heroes who do bad things and to villains who think they're the good guys, but I do find that moral ambiguity and conflict makes for great characters. "

" When I think of a story, somehow it just always seems to come out involving spooks and spies and government skullduggery. "

" There's an awful lot of corruption in Japanese business and politics, corruption of the sort that can make for great setting for a spy story. "

" If the reader cares, I don't think it matters so much whether your hero is in fact an anti-hero. "

" Stephen King has inspired me with his humor and honesty, and his admonition that the author's job is to tell the truth. "

" When I was in college, I became interested in various aspects of foreign policy and international relations. Even as a kid, I was interested in what I call, loosely speaking, forbidden knowledge. "

" What I care about is readers because without readers I can't make a living... And I think it's a bad thing for the world if people don't read anymore. I want people to read a lot. "

" The two most important things to do for self-defense are not to take a martial arts class or get a gun, but to think like the opposition and know where you're most at risk. "

" I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It's the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn't have much experience beyond the training. "

" Publishing for me is a business, not an ideology. "

" I have a long-standing interest in what I like to think of as 'forbidden knowledge:' methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy stuff, and other things that the government wants only a few select individuals to know. "

" I read pretty eclectically - fiction, non-fiction, and poetry - and I've been inspired and influenced by a number of writers. "

" After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement. "

" I can understand the allure of a venerable Big Six imprint, of a shot at the New York Times list, of a publisher-sponsored book tour, of seeing your hardbacks in bookstores and your paperbacks in supermarkets. "

" I want to position my books as premium-priced versions on the reasonably-priced scale, if that makes sense, to find a sweet spot between the high-end of what my brand can support and the low end that results in impulse purchases and maximum sales volume. "

" Overall, one of the things that excites me most about self-publishing is that the highest-value use of my time in promoting the books will be found in writing more of them. "

" Books are my art. The movie is someone else's art. But it's great marketing for books. "

" I love Japan, and Tokyo is my favorite city. "

" Anger, and the self-righteousness that is both the cause and consequence of anger, tends to be easier on the psyche than personal responsibility. "

" Publishing, legacy or indie, is a vehicle, and you can't opine about whether someone has chosen the right vehicle if you don't know where she intends to drive it. "

" Psychologically, it's always more pleasurable to blame others for our problems than it is to acknowledge our own responsibility. "

" Action fiction is driven more by what than by who. Put that ticking nuclear suitcase under Manhattan, and it's relatively easy to create suspense. Literary fiction is driven more by who than by what. "