I have notebooks and sketchbooks for ideas. I also have drawers full of envelopes covered in quick outlines, scenes or scraps of dialogue that I don't want to forget. I tend to grab whatever's to hand and just get the thing down before it's lost. It'...
One of the coolest things about touring around, actually, is getting to meet people, and getting to pick up on things that other people like. So many times, people come up to me after a reading and say, 'You must have read this,' or 'You must have se...
I think there's a danger of becoming too familiar with things, isn't there? That you kind of, when you're used to seeing the same things every day, you see those things come what may, and you don't see maybe the interesting things just slightly out o...
I once tried to give him a friendly little "drugs chat". He politely corrected me on every single fact, then said he'd noticed I drank above the recommended guidelines of Red Bull and did I think I might have an addiction? That was the last time I tr...
It was the time of year when migrating crows wheeled across the sky, thunderous flocks that moved like a single veil, and I heard them, out there in the wild chirruping air. Turing to the window, I watched the birds fill the sky before disappearing, ...
I think the way we think about cancer, the way we treat cancer, has dramatically changed in the last century. There is an enormous amount of options that a physician can provide today, right down from curing patients, treating patients or providing p...
You know, ever since man had any notion that some of his other people, his colleagues, could be different, could be strange, could be severely depressed or what we now recognize as schizophrenia, he was certain that this kind of illness had to come f...
These are two different belief systems. There is no reason in the world that the religious have to explain their faith on a scientific basis. It makes no sense. What is needed between science and religion is not a debate but a conversation, each one ...
Because if I let myself feel the pain and the anger, I think it might kill me. Or I might kill someone else. I know it's wrong to feel that way about God and I know its's wrong to not feel anything. I hate it. I don't hate God. I hate not loving Him.
Everything in this life passes away — only God remains, only He is worth struggling towards. We have a choice: to follow the way of this world, of the society that surrounds us, and thereby find ourselves outside of God; or to choose the way of lif...
While writing my memoir, 'When Skateboards Will Be Free,' I would sometimes have to pore over hours of microfilm at the New York Public Library in order to try to get one obscure detail right. For instance, was the Socialist Workers Party originally ...
In many ways I'm similar to Barack Obama, who also has a strange name but was raised by a white American mother. His background is far more complicated than his name would suggest. Furthermore, the fact that I was a child during the hostage crisis ha...
I once did an event with Ian Rankin where he said he didn't really need to do much background research because his books are set in the present, and I just thought: 'You lucky, lucky beast!' because as a historical novelist, I live constantly on the ...
So for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said 'African' instead of 'Nubian' or 'Black' or 'Kemet' or 'original' or 'Israelite,' don't be so foolish. I say 'African' because the continent of Africa is the land from whic...
There are moments of despair that come sometimes, when night sets in and a white fog presses against the windows. Then our house changes its shape, rears up and becomes a place of despair. Then fear and rage run simply--and the thought of Death as a ...
She wishes her grandmother had not been so protective, and that she understood better what passes between a man and woman. As it is, she simply enjoys the feelings and wonders if they are what lightning is made of, for everything comes back to the we...
I have lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and ...
I used to take formal notes in lines of blue, and underline the key words in red, and I realised I needed only the key words and the idea. Then to bring in connections, I drew arrows and put in images and codes. It was a picture outside my head of wh...
It's 2010. I'm forty-three years old. I've just turned in the final draft of what will be my third novel when I decide I want a tattoo. Maybe it's a middle-age thing. Or maybe now that my kids are nearly grown and I have a career in place, I'm finall...
I have minor characters who are Asian-American, and I've been using them throughout my career, but they've never taken center stage, they've never been really powerful, they've never expressed some of the experiences I had growing up in the U.S. John...
Since my romance novels had all been thrillers as well, it wasn't such a leap for me to move into the straight thriller genre. The most difficult part, I think, was being accepted as a thriller writer. Once you've written romance, unfortunately, crit...
