Author Quotes

Crime stories are, as you know, one of the most popular forms of entertainment that exist. If you then try to have something to say... that I have, of course.

Whenever I finish a book, I start with a blank slate and never have ideas lined up.

We, of course, have the power of hindsight in our arsenal, but people living in Berlin in that era didn't. What would that have been like as this darkness fell over Germany?

There's something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.

Reading is such a personal thing to me. I'd much rather give someone a gift certificate to a bookstore, and let that person choose his or her own books.

I'm very perverse. If someone tells me I have to read a book, I'm instantly disinclined to do so.

I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in the upper levels of the State Department.

I thought I'd go to a bookstore and see what moved me.

I started reading the big histories and the small histories, the memoirs and so forth. At some point, I found the diary of William E. Dodd.

I pride myself on having a journalistic remove.

I like all kinds of music, though I tend to prefer jazz and classics.

I don't listen to music when I write, but I do turn on appropriate music when I read portions of my manuscripts back to myself - kind of like adding a soundtrack to help shape mood.

Hitler was such an anomalous character - he was so over-the-top chaotic in his approach to statesmanship, his manner and in the violence which overwhelmed the country initially. I think diplomats around the world... felt like something like that simply would not be tolerated by the people of Germany

For some people, their idea of getting tough is longer suspended sentences.

I used to tell my writing students that they must write the books they wished they could come upon - because then the books they hungered and thirsted for would exist.

I used to love to untangle chains when I was a child. I had thin, busy fingers, and I never gave up. Perhaps there was a psychiatric component to my concentration but like much of my psychic damage, this worked to everyone's advantage.

Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the street will share her banana with anyone who needs it, whereas in America, people amass and hoard as many bananas as they can to sell for an exorbitant p

A whole lot of us believers, of all different religions, are ready to turn back the tide of madness by walking together, in both the dark and the light - in other words, through life - registering voters as we go, and keeping the faith.

Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.

I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen.

I accidentally forgot to graduate from college.

There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.

It's a great time to be alive.

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.

I see that children fill the existential hollowness many people feel; that when we have children, we know they will need us, and maybe love us, but we don't have a clue how hard it is going to be.

I don't want something special. I want something beautifully plain.

Your experiences will be yours alone. But truth and best friendship will rarely if ever disappoint you.

The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.

Some people won't go the extra mile, and then on their birthday, when no one makes a fuss, they feel neglected and bitter.

I loved every second of Catholic church. I loved the sickly sweet rotting-pomegranate smells of the incense. I loved the overwrought altar, the birdbath of holy water, the votive candles; I loved that there was a poor box, the stations of the cross rendered in stained glass on the windows.