I was in sit-ins to desegregate restaurants and movie houses in the '60s.
Unfortunately for novelists, real life is getting way too funny and far-fetched.
Every writer scrounges for inspiration in different places, and there's no shame in raiding the headlines. It's necessary, in fact, when attempting contemporary satire. Sharp-edged humor relies on topical reference points.
I love reality shows. The folks who dream up some of these concepts are either geniuses, or totally stoned.
Like Richard Price and the late, great Elmore Leonard, Matt Burgess is one of those cool, quick and funny writers who can turn a seemingly routine crime caper into something special.
The greatest sin for a writer is to be boring.
The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It's hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.
If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.
Being fat worked, and I think that was what was confusing for me for a long time in my career.
I wanted to stimulate thought instead of throwing things out or try to give a perspective. I just put stuff up and it's up for two or three weeks and I get tired of it, so I take it down and put something else up.
It is interesting that liberals don't mind a strong faith at all. When it's their guy with a strong faith - whether it's Jimmy Carter or Woodrow Wilson or Harry Truman - that's just great. FDR inscribing Bibles and sending them to the troops. God bless him! But when a Republican president cites Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher, as George W. Bush did on a famous occasion, then, well, the liberals cry out that [Tomás de] Torquemada is on the loose and warn gravely of the coming Inquisition.