My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn’t know what to think about me. So I became a closet writer.
My books come to me in images, and sometimes the image is at the beginning of the book, and sometimes it’s simply a flash somewhere in the middle.
What they smell isn’t the emotion of fear. What dogs can smell is the changes in a person’s skin that suggest fear to the dog, anxiety, the way your skin sweats, the amount of uric acid that suddenly pours out of your pores.
Dogs give us something just as we give something to them.
The relationship between a military working dog and a military dog handler is about as close as a man and a dog can become. You see this loyalty, the devotion, unlike any other and the protectiveness.
Everyone knows dogs. Most people love dogs. I think most American families probably have a dog, but I don’t think people really realize or understand just how wonderful and special dogs are.
I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.
I was digging for stuff in a used bookstore, and I came upon ‘Little Sister.’ I fell in love with Chandler that night. I fell right down the rabbit hole of crime fiction.
If my vision was good enough, I’d be an astronaut.
Adults always wonder what to say and how to say it when they’re talking to a child. You want to be wise, but all you are is a child yourself in a larger body. Nothing is ever what it seems. The things that you think you know are never certain. I know that now. I wish that I didn’t, but I do.
People want you to be ordinary.
Pike put down the cat. He slid from Pike’s arms like molasses and puddled at his feet.
When dogs fulfill their roles they are ecstatically happy.
People want you to be ordinary. They don’t like it when people are different. They don’t like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you’re special; it reminds them of everything that they aren’t.
Efficiency and focus are the keys to success.
Some of us find our way with a single light to guide us; others lose themselves even when the star field is as sharp as a neon ceiling. Ethics may not be situational, but feelings are. We learn to adjust, and, over time, the stars we use to guide ourselves come to reside within rather than without.
It’s easy to sound good. All you do is leave in the parts where you act tough and forget the parts where you get shoved around.
I love the fact that you collaborate with your readers when you write a book.
I had a big Akita, Yoshi, who was fabulous. I loved him. We lost him when he was 12, and I’ve never been able to replace him. Normally, most people lose a pet and get another and keep going on. But it just felt wrong to me; it felt disloyal.
At Lackland Air Force Base, they make an effort to retrain military dogs that suffer from PTSD. It’s a lengthy, long process. The treatment is much the same as it would be for people, but it’s a difficult road back.
I write characters and stories that move me, and I write from the heart.