Jeffery Deaver Quotes

I also try very hard to create characters - both heroes and villains - with psychological depth.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.

I was editor of my high school literary magazine and a reporter for the school newspaper.

When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

I spend about eight months researching and outlining my book.

I write pretty much anywhere - on planes, in hotel rooms, anywhere in my house.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block, the problem is idea block

I liked the challenge of writing in a very concise structure in which both meaning and form are important.

It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

Trying to write books with a subject matter or in a genre or style you're not familiar with is the best way to find the Big Block looming.

Ideally, I like to integrate the human issues into the suspense story itself.

In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.

The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.

People with children and people with their own business always pick up a ringing phone.

Too much screaming in Congress. Too much screaming everywhere.

We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.

When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.

She was reflecting back on a truth she had learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted.

For me a thriller is a very carefully structured story.

That's the past for you. Not only does it come back at the most unexpected, and inconvenient, times but it's set in stone.

And life changes. Maybe just a little, maybe a lot. And at some point, it just isn't worth the fight to fix it.

In general, I think, less is more, and that if a reader stops reading because a book is too icky then I've failed in my obligation to the readers.

The outline is 95 percent of the book. Then I sit down and write, and that's the easy part.

In the shaded portions where the two spheres of different lives meet, certain fundamentals- moods, loves, fears, angers- can't be hidden. That's the contract.

Throat clutching from the outset! The Never List stands as a sterling example of psychological thriller writing at its best. Cancel appointments and give up on sleep. It's that kind of book.

Robert Rotenberg does for Toronto what Ian Rankin does for Edinburgh.

So I work hard to present the human side of my characters while not neglecting the plot.

Of course, all writers draw upon their personal experiences in describing day-to-day life and human relationships, but I tend to keep my own experiences largely separate from my stories.

Collins masterfully blends fact and fiction...transcends the historical thriller.

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

It's becoming apparent that I like bad boys. That's one of my problems. They've all been bad boys. You're one too. You're a bad boy. But, I think you're a good bad boy.

Sometimes you can't be what you ought to be, you can't have what you ought to have.

I think a lot of young aspiring writers get misdirected; they think 'I ought to write this, even though I enjoy reading that'. What you have to do is write what you enjoy reading.

It's a tough life, she'd said. "It's the little things that get us through the day.

But it works that way if it works.

God don't give out certain.