“I write because I can’t sleep.”

In terms of a narrative nonfiction book, when you’re describing scenes that you have multiple sources for, and that you have differing sources for, and you decide to choose a path that puts all that information together.

I have an antique console stand-up radio that I bought in a yard sale, that I’ve always half-believed has magical properties. It’s in my office, and it has watched over each of the fifteen books I’ve written. It also helped me find my wife.

Rumor gets printed as fact. We may have lost our critical facility as a nation.

I certainly was a geeky kid myself, but to me, math and science were always these magical things- powerful tools you could use in incredible ways.

The idea that the story is true is more important than being able to prove that it’s true.

I’ve always loved adventure stories that involve brilliant kids using their brains to beat systems that seem unbeatable.

I write about nerds who go the extra mile and become rock stars.

There’s always going to be controversy when you write the way I write.

Businesses should follow and learn from others successes and failures in order to better understand and predict their own.

Well yeah, there’s definitely going to be a little bit of the author in that. But there’s nothing wrong with that.

People rely on Wikipedia, and a lot of it is wrong. But because there it is on the Internet, they assume it’s right.

I believe Facebook is going all the way. They’re going to reach a billion members and will be the biggest company in the world. It will be a platform everyone goes on the Internet through.

I see myself as an entertainer.

I write nonfiction in this thriller-esque style. I have all the facts; I research it. I have thousands of pages of court documents… I try to get inside my stories.

Seeing someone reading something I wrote on an airplane – things like that are pretty awesome.

What I don’t do – and this is the only thing I do differently in writing for kids – is that I don’t revel in the gory details.

I’ve been writing full-time since 1978.

Don’t try to write to the trend of the moment.

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.

Dawn was written well before 9/11. People speak a lot today about the banality of evil, but not all evil is banal.

I don’t really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.

If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.