Randy Wayne White

“The written word is the only anchor we have in life. How extraordinary would it be if we had even three or four paragraphs written honestly about their lives by our ancestors?”

“The tough thing about writing is you go into a room alone, you close the door and you do your work.”

“It's called 'Night Moves,' and it's my favorite 'Doc Ford' of all times. It's way too complicated, but it worked.”

“All the women in my family were superb cooks.”

“The water is alive. It is alive. If we could get a mask and fins and drop down off these docks, we'd see snook and redfish and probably goliath grouper. And it's an amazing world unto itself and a very thin demarcation between one world and the other. You know, the distance of the water surface.”

“Not long ago I made a list of Doc Ford books I would like to do, and I came up with 11 pretty easily. I like to let the characters go their own ways and see what happens. I find them fascinating.”

“It is a fact that scientists have deposited dye in certain lakes around Orlando and tracked the effluent to Florida Bay. There is a lake near Everglades City, Deep Lake, and large tarpon show up in that lake, 30 miles from the sea.”

“The Florida peninsula is, in fact, an emerging plateau, honeycombed with voids and vents, caves and underground waterways. Travelers on Interstate Highway I-75 have no idea that, beneath them, are cave labyrinths still being mapped by speleologists - 'cavers,' they prefer to be called.”

“My aunts still try to fatten me up.”