Marcus Sakey

“I don't know if this is the flat-out strangest, but I'll never forget handling a human brain. It had been sliced into sections for autopsy, each about an inch thick, and felt like pork tenderloin. I swear to god, my first thought was that if you were to dust it with chipotle and cinnamon and saute it in butter, it would probably be delicious.”

“I learned to dive in Belize, which is sort of like learning to drive in an Aston Martin. The reefs and refuges are some of the most dramatic in the world. But the real reason I went was to dive the Blue Hole, a 400 ft. sinkhole near Ambergris Caye. Google it, and you'll see why.”

“As an author, it's a strange process to watch your novel turned into a movie. It's tremendously exciting but somewhat voyeuristic; after all, novelists are rarely involved in the process.”

“One of the things that I love about crime novels is that you can turn the volume all the way up. If I can make somebody blow their subway stop, I win.”

“I like really sharp flavors, and I like contrasts. Something sweet and sour at the same time is a big win.”

“For me, the best moments in storytelling are the ones where I feel I'm discovering something.”

“A decade in advertising exposed me to plenty of schemers and backstabbers. But honestly, advertising is wonderful training for fiction. Writing novels is much easier if you've ever tried to write a billboard.”

“I'm a card-carrying nerd, a gamer, and sci-fi geek.”

“In 1791, the right to bear arms to defend against an over-reaching government wasn't theoretical. Today, it's hard to imagine physical weapons serving the same purpose. But it's easy to see how hacktivists might - especially if you broaden the opponents to include hate groups and rapacious multinationals.”

“I do wish that reviews were less like book reports. There was an era when reviewers had something to say about a book: when they painted context and drew conclusions. Many reviews these days are little more than plot summary.”

“Nobody is accidentally in Alaska. The people who are in Alaska are there because they choose to be, so they've sort of got a real frontier ethic. The people are incredibly friendly, interesting, smart people - but they also stay out of each other's business.”

“My feeling is that the most dangerous people are always those who take a hardline position - and nothing inspires that sort of extremism like difference.”

“The notion of a writer sitting in a library doing research isn't what I want. The research I love doing isn't found in a book. It's what it feels like to rappel down the side of a building; to train with a SWAT team; to hold a human brain in your hands; or to dive for pirate treasure. Those are things I've done to research my stories.”

“I'm not at all upset to be considered a crime novelist. But for me, it's never really about the crime or the violence. I'm much more interested in exploring issues.”

“I'm a Hemingway fan, so in a manner of speaking, I've been fishing with him already. But man, would I love to board Pilar in Key West and head south until we have a day-long battle with a tarpon, haul that bad boy up, then celebrate by telling lies over rum on a Cuban terrace.”

“If you pick up a copy of 'A Better World,' you'll lose those last five pounds while saving a baby seal under a rainbow. I kid. It'll be ten pounds.”

“I still miss my first car. Not a glamorous ride, but I must've put 60,000 miles in road trips on that thing.”

“Trying to analyze a situation without enough data was like looking at a photograph of a ball in flight and trying to gauge its direction. Is it going up, down, sideways? Is it about to collide with a baseball bat? Is it moving at all, or is something on the blind side holding it in place? A single frame didn't mean a thing. Patterns were based on data. With enough datapoints, you could predict just about anything.”

“For me, one of the hallmarks of a really great book is that I'm seeing it in my head while I'm reading.”

“My goal as a novelist is to create smart entertainment, books that keep bright people up too late, that make them want to read just one more chapter. Books that have ideas threaded in amidst the thrilling bits, ideas that I hope linger even after people close the book.”