Where there is no waste, there is no want.

Time will unfold its leaves.

Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent.

Oh, 'twould be marvelous if the world and its moral questions were like some game board, with plain black players and white, and fixed rules, and nary a shade of grey.

There are those among us ... who prefer to live in myth instead of fact.

There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.

I'm not a writer by profession. It's something I do when I run out of excuses to waste time. Most of my adult life I worked for GM in various capacities, at various facilities. I'm retired now. At one time I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I was in love with the F-4 Phantom. But I didn't have the Right Stuff.

The publishers want series, obviously. Originally, they wanted me to do the Garrett series along with another similar series, so it would be one book every six months. Eventually I'd just do the outlines and they'd get some poor unknown author to flesh out the stories. That's why you see so many books by a famous author and an unknown. You can make half the money basically by selling your name. The thing is, once your name is on enough bad books, maybe it isn't worth all that much any more.

Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.

The essence of romance is an unshakable conviction that next time will be different.

The main advice I've given every beginning writer I've ever talked to is, "Do it." You've got to stop talking about it and sit down and do it. Put your ass in front of a computer and do it.

Among men you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another.

The only characters I've made to resemble real people have been grotesques.

No religion I ever encountered made any sense. None are consistent. Most gods are megalomaniacs and paranoid psychotics by their worshippers' description. I don't see how they could survive their own insanity. But it's not impossible that human beings are incapable of interpreting a power so much greater than themselves. Maybe religions are twisted and perverted shadows of truth. Maybe there are forces which shape the world. I myself have never understood why, in a universe so vast, a god would care about something so trivial as worship or human destiny.

More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.

Make a living? No. Even in my best years of the first thirty it was never more than hobby money. The last maybe five I've made enough to support myself in genteel poverty. Certainly not enough to support a family and put three sons through college.

Even when we know things, sometimes it takes words to make them concrete.

Books are nothing but repositories for those lies the author wants his reader to believe.

Write. Don't talk about writing. Don't tell me about your wonderful story ideas. Don't give me a bunch of "somedays." Plant your ass and scribble, type, keyboard. If you have any talent at all, it will leak out despite your failure to pay attention in English.

There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.

Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony.

The man who counts on the aid of a god deserves the help he doesn't get.

Evil is relative.... You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.

Little people have to hate, have to blame someone for their own inadequacies.

The thing that you know to be true is the lie that will kill you.