Quotes from John Sandford

Most people in protest mobs are pretty sincere and don't want to fight cops or break things.

People ought to be slapped up side of the head, not always get what they expect. That's why sometimes the bad guy gets away.

I've always thought of myself as a journalist; that was what I did.

I'm somewhat depressive.

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.

They don't have a lot of crime in the countryside other than theft. But every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly.

As a journalist, I interviewed people, and you begin to feel different rhythms in speech, and you can use those things to help carve out a character.

There's something about marriage that is not as intensely romantic or interesting as a couple's first meeting.

These characters are not spontaneous creations. They are engineered down to the last nut and bolt.

Virgil Flowers fishes in the St. Croix where I fish for muskies near my house.

I was a newspaper editor in the Army, and I know something about the Army PR culture.

Most people like a little sex in their novels.

Combat stress isn't the only problem for soldiers isolated in Iraq - there are family issues, re-integration issues when soldiers go home on leave, loneliness.

I once paddled a canoe the length of the Mississippi River all the way from Itasca to New Orleans.

I'm an outdoors kind of guy.

If you do outline, you have to be aware of the problems that that kind of thing can cause.

Things fall apart and happen out of stupidity and carelessness.

I've always had a fascination with the technical and small-scale aspects of life - the national media seem to have more interest in the sweeping political views.

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.

trust no one, everything breaks, nothing works as advertised, and if anything can go wrong, it will.

LIKE ANY GOOD MINNESOTAN, Lucas rarely missed the TV weather before going to bed.

DDT stood for Dangerous Darrell Thomas. Thomas had given himself the name when he was riding with a motorcycle club and was interviewed for a public radio magazine. The magazine writer got it wrong, though, and referred to him as TDT--Terrible Darrell Thompson--which lost something of its intent when expressed as initials; and since the writer got the last name wrong, too, Thomas never again trusted the media.

I am not so afraid that I cannot see the truth.

Everything we're doing is freakin' iffy. That's what makes it so much fun.