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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.
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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.
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There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting.
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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.
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I fear becoming formulaic. Some of my books are.
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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.
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Most people like a little sex in their novels.
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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.
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If you actually hang out in the countryside, which I did, it's actually quite peaceful.
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Most people in protest mobs are pretty sincere and don't want to fight cops or break things.
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I've always been sort of interested in the rural countryside. Things happen out there that are very strange to city dwellers.
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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.
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You have the feeling that if you get a Pulitzer, you're somehow set for life.
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I have a problem with the way the media deals with a lot of law enforcement issues.
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These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt.
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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.
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The difference is this: If you write a good book, it'll get published. If you have a great screenplay, there is no guarantee.
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It's interesting how people are sensitive to language and how it works.
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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.
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I'm somewhat depressive.
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I really do need the help of other people working with me.
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Before the Internet became so powerful, I toured extensively. With the rise of the Internet, touring apparently has become less important.
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My kids, who are grown now and living in L.A., are used to me packing up and taking off to somewhere weird.
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I spend a lot of time wandering around the countryside just looking at people, seeing how everything fits together.