Douglas Preston

“satan is a christian creation and you can keep him, thank you!”

“Chauncy made a huge effort to control himself. “I had lunch at Maisie’s Diner.”“And?”“And what? It was the most revolting lunch it has been my misfortune to consume.”“And after?”“Diarrhea, of course.”

“Wine is like many of the fine experiences in life which take time and experience to extract their full pleasure and meaning.”

“My hobbies are mountain biking, horseback riding and packing, canoeing and kayaking, hiking, camping, cooking, and skiing.”

“When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish I were writing a nonfiction book where all the facts are laid out and I don't have to be so much at sea.”

“Hubris and science are incompatible.”

“nothing motivated a person quite as much as the desire for vengeance.”

“There are so many journalists out there, I hate to say it, who are lazy and don't do their research - and it shows.”

“One can reach the gates of hell just as easily by short steps as by large.”

“I would have to say the novel 'War and Peace' influenced me more than any other book. This greatest of novels demonstrated to me the enormous power of literature and fired me up with a desire to become a writer, to participate in what I considered then to be the greatest of all endeavors.”

“My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later.”

“if the count of monte cristo could escape the chateau d'if, william smithback could escape from river oaks”

“I'm pretty much a 9-to-5 kind of guy. I usually get to work about 8 in the morning, and I work until 4 or 5, and sometimes I work on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Pretty much I keep the same hours as an accountant or clerk or whatever.”

“There is nothing inherently wrong about science.”

“We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.”

“I need to write in a small room - the smaller the better. I can't write in a big room where someone might sneak up behind my back.”

“You cannot stare evil in the face; it has no face. It has no body, no bones, no blood. Any attempt to describe it ends in glibness and self-delusion.”

“because it's not enough to have a dream—you need financing.”