Quotes About Author

My time in war zones have been fleeting and infrequent. I've been to Iraq. I've been to Afghanistan. I've been to other places where I've collected hazardous duty pay.

I never thought I would go to Gaza. It's incredibly difficult to get into, and when you get there, it's a war zone. Then they have this beach, and there's this incredible, vibrant beach culture there, which is something that I grew up with in Southern California.

I will continue to push for solutions to eliminate reliance on hired guns to provide security in war zones.

I didn't know I was a zombie pedant until I started considering what from the zombie canon to keep in 'Zone One' and what to ignore.

'Zone One' comes out of me trying to work through some of my ideas about why, for me personally, zombies are scary.

It's not easy for me as a writer to suspend my disbelief in a fantastical zone. I can do it. But it's more natural for me to write stories that are comic. Or hopefully comic.

Stephen King in general, as well as films of the apocalypse from the '70s, had a big influence on 'Zone One.'

Filming a story set in a war zone in the '60s was such a treat, as it gave me so much scope to dive into.

Honestly, a lot of the time, I'm like, 'Oh, my god, I've got so many lines to learn,' that I have to focus and get in into a bit of a zone, but there are always moments to have some fun.

As for finding comfort in the zone, I'm comfortable singing what I write. I like writing emotional and slow, melodious songs. I haven't tried singing songs from other genres, but yes, I would like to give them a try.

I like to sit and listen to conversations here in Nashville. Not in a weird, stalker-ish way. I wander around Tennessee and find myself in little bars just zoning in.

I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second.

More people thought I was strange because I was a teenage novelist, not because I was from Oklahoma. That's where I got the looks like I was from the zoo.

Through PETA, we rescue animals in roadside zoos and circuses. They are some of the most abused animals in the country.

When the audience knows you know better, it's satire, but when they think you can't do any better, it's corn.

A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.

Life is God's novel. Let him write it.

The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the heroical virtue.

Discontent and disorder were signs of energy and hope, not of despair.

Middle age snuffs out more talent than even wars or sudden deaths do.

He speaks English with the flawless imperfection of a New Yorker.

The swaggering underemphasis of New England.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.

Neurotic means he is not as sensible as I am, and psychotic means he's even worse than my brother-in-law.