Fundamentally, I think of myself as a storyteller, not a writer.

Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.

Of all human lamentations, without doubt, the most common is if only I had known. But we can't know, and so days of death and fire so often begin no differently than those of love and warmth.

The only real difference between a wise man and a fool, Moore knew, was that the wise man tended to make more serious mistakes—and only because no one trusted a fool with really crucial decisions; only the wise had the opportunity to lose battles, or nations.

One thing about flying that he never got used to was that no matter how awful the weather was on the ground, if you flew high enough you could always find the sun.

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.