Barry Eisler

“Anger, and the self-righteousness that is both the cause and consequence of anger, tends to be easier on the psyche than personal responsibility.”

“When I was in college, I became interested in various aspects of foreign policy and international relations. Even as a kid, I was interested in what I call, loosely speaking, forbidden knowledge.”

“After I sold my screenplay adaptation of 'Rain Fall' to Sony Pictures, I had no more creative involvement.”

“Publishing for me is a business, not an ideology.”

“I have a long-standing interest in what I like to think of as 'forbidden knowledge:' methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy stuff, and other things that the government wants only a few select individuals to know.”

“When I think of a story, somehow it just always seems to come out involving spooks and spies and government skullduggery.”

“Sometimes I think the urge to believe in our own worldview is our most powerful intellectual imperative, the mind's equivalent of feeding, fighting, and fornicating. People will eagerly twist facts into wholly unrecognizable shapes to fit them into existing suppositions. They'll ignore the obvious, select the irrelevant, and spin it all into a tapestry of self-deception, solely to justify an idea, no matter how impoverished or self-destructive.”

“If the reader cares, I don't think it matters so much whether your hero is in fact an anti-hero.”

“Good argument is intended to persuade another.”

“I make a good living selling hardback books through paper publishers, and I have many friends in the industry who will suffer as it changes, so on a personal level, the transition to digital isn't something I welcome wholeheartedly.”

“The Internet is a limitless library at your fingertips. It's a great place to start with the acquisition of knowledge. My process is to go to a place when I'm writing about it. Nothing captures the essence, feeling and flavor of a place better than when I'm actually there and doing the writing.”

“Stephen King has inspired me with his humor and honesty, and his admonition that the author's job is to tell the truth.”

“The post office actually achieves its mission. I wish we could say the same of the CIA.”

“I'm not sure why I'm so drawn to heroes who do bad things and to villains who think they're the good guys, but I do find that moral ambiguity and conflict makes for great characters.”

“I want to position my books as premium-priced versions on the reasonably-priced scale, if that makes sense, to find a sweet spot between the high-end of what my brand can support and the low end that results in impulse purchases and maximum sales volume.”

“Overall, one of the things that excites me most about self-publishing is that the highest-value use of my time in promoting the books will be found in writing more of them.”

“The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American.”

“I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It's the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn't have much experience beyond the training.”

“Action fiction is driven more by what than by who. Put that ticking nuclear suitcase under Manhattan, and it's relatively easy to create suspense. Literary fiction is driven more by who than by what.”

“The two most important things to do for self-defense are not to take a martial arts class or get a gun, but to think like the opposition and know where you're most at risk.”