"The antihero is always going to come back because it's an easy crutch.  It also appeals to people in the film business.  Especially the film business, because it's an immoral business."

"I don't write for anyone else, but I'm aware of the fact—once I go to editing and polishing—that I'm asking people to shell out their hard-earned money."

"We all write for ourselves, because we're all those kids who, when we were little, liked to write poems and short stories.  We amused ourselves."

"I once asked a fan who was a homicide cop, 'Why do you even read this? Isn't it a busman's holiday?'  He said, 'Jon, I get the bad guy 70 percent of the time.  You get him 100 percent of the time.'  People like crime novels because they give a certain sense of—I hate to use the words, but—closure and finality.  To some extent that's why people latch onto forensics, and shows like 'CSI' are so popular.  DNA, whiz-bang science."

"The act of writing, once I actually sit down, is always spontaneous and creative ... what Freud would call a primary process—an unconscious mind type of thing, where you're in a hypnoidal state, an altered state of consciousness.  You'll sit down and after three hours it seems like it's been 20 minutes.  Although I find myself as tired as if I've been working for eight hours." (artist)