Quotes from Jeffery Deaver

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

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

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

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

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.

Hardcover books are fairly expensive these days and to read one requires a significant commitment of time in our busy society. So I want to make sure that when readers buy one of my books they get something they're familiar with.

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

Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise.

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.

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

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

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

Love, son, is not manifest in the gift of gadgets or coddling foods or rooms of one's own. Love shows itself in discipline and example and sacrifice—even giving up one's life.

The creatures I had seen were not men, had never been men. They were animals—humanised animals—triumphs of vivisection.

Time transcends morality

Hollow then produced Kobel's tax returns for the past three years. When Ringling objected, Hollow said to Judge Rollins, "Your Honor, a man who files a tax return is of sound mind." "That's debatable," said the ultraconservative judge, drawing laughter from the courtroom.

But it works that way if it works.

she wasn't a feminist. She was an "equalist.

James M. Cain (1892–1977) wrote two indisputable masterpieces, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity.

He believed there was nothing essentially unAmerican about greed or lust—hey, those qualities were encouraged everywhere from Wall Street to Capitol Hill.

You put a certain amount of effort into stitching a jacket or dress and you get the garment you expect. There's no mystery. But you put a thousand times more effort into raising your child and the result is the opposite of what you hope and dream for. This seemed so unfair.