“The best crime novels are all based on people keeping secrets.”

Political thriller? International thriller? Financial thriller? Whatever you call it, The Ascendant is smart, edgy, fast-paced storytelling at its best.

In our system, we leave questions of fact to a jury. But to render a verdict, a jury must know the law. For this, we rely upon jury instructions.

Its unlikely hero, Garrett Reilly, reminded me of a young Jack Reacher as a tech-sa What I said: “Political thriller? International thriller? Financial thriller? Whatever you call it,

According to FBI statistics for 2008, only 22 percent of murder victims were killed by strangers.

More than 30 percent were slain by family members, boyfriends, and girlfriends.

All lying – you may think a lie is harmless, but you put them all together and there’s a calamity.

Apparently, an undocumented side effect of dope is a gross overestimation of one’s own intelligence.

Drew Chapman is a debut novelist to watch.

Apathy is grossly undervalued and never there for me when I need it.

Its unlikely hero, Garrett Reilly, reminded me of a young Jack Reacher as a tech-savvy bond analyst.

Anyone who’s had a shower and hasn’t ingested illegal narcotics within a couple of days stands out on a bench in the courthouse.

Instructions are supposed to translate the law into lay terms that the jury can apply to the facts as they determine them.

The Ascendant is smart, edgy, fast-paced storytelling at its best.

Nothing worse than reading a love scene written by your father.

They were asked to listen to the facts and apply the law to the best of their ability in a case the world was watching.

Dopers become convinced they’ve hidden their stash so well a cop won’t find it. They’re always wrong.

A life of gratitude to God for being saved is far more pleasing than a life based on self-righteousness over being good.

I’ve based my entire career off of just trying to do that for them – but I always kind of forget that my real life friends can hear my music and they can watch my interviews if they want and that’s when I get kind of like- “oh…”

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.

Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.

All intimacies are based on differences.

If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I’d have to say, ‘George, you and I are about to become partners.’

My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world.

I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that’s been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.