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You Can Do The Best Research And Be Making The Strongest Intellectual Argument, But If Readers Don't Get Past The Third Paragraph You've Wasted Your Energy And Valuable Ink.

-Carl Hiaasen

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You Can Do The

Carl Hiaasen

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You Can Do The Best Research And Be Making The Strongest Intellectual Argument, But If Readers Don't Get Past The Third Paragraph You've Wasted Your Energy And Valuable Ink.

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That Dreadful Alligator Attack In Orlando Would Never Have Happened If Disney Had Put Up Real Warning Signs, Like Other Florida Resorts Do. But Wild Alligators Don't Fit The Disney Image, So They Were No Proper Warnings, And A Child Died For No Reason.

Disney World Is An Armpit Compared To Montana.

I Love Reality Shows. The Folks Who Dream Up Some Of These Concepts Are Either Geniuses, Or Totally Stoned.

Mickey Cray Had Been Out Of Work Ever Since A Dead Iguana Fell From A Palm Tree And Hit Him On The Head.

Every Writer Scrounges For Inspiration In Different Places, And There's No Shame In Raiding The Headlines. It's Necessary, In Fact, When Attempting Contemporary Satire. Sharp-edged Humor Relies On Topical Reference Points.

As Frightening As This May Sound, What You See In The Books Is The Way I See The World. And So Far I Haven't Seen Anything, Either In Florida Or Elsewhere, To Dissuade Me From It.

When I Was Writing Razor Girl, I Thought It Would Be Fun To Have A Redneck Tv Family That Was Really Just A Bunch Of Actors Who Had To Be Trained To Be Rednecks. That's Not So Farfetched, If You Know How Hollywood Works.

The Florida In My Novels Is Not As Seedy As The Real Florida. It's Hard To Stay Ahead Of The Curve. Every Time I Write A Scene That I Think Is The Sickest Thing I Have Ever Dreamed Up, It Is Surpassed By Something That Happens In Real Life.

My Books Are Shelved In Different Places, Depending On The Bookstore. Sometimes They Can Be Found In The Mystery Section, Sometimes In The Humor Department, And Occasionally Even In The Literature Aisle, Which Is Somewhat Astounding.

My Driving Record Is Not Exemplary, But I Have Never Had A Speeding Ticket Over 100 M.p.h. I Can Say That Unequivocally.

All Novels Are About Crime. You'd Be Hard Pressed To Find Any Novel That Does Not Have An Element Of Crime. I Don't See Myself As A Crime Novelist, But There Are Crimes In My Books. That's The Nature Of Storytelling, If You Want To Reflect The Real World.

Obviously You Have To Make A Profit To Put Out A Newspaper. I'm Not An Idiot. But When The Margins Are In Excess Of 25 Per Cent You're Talking About Greed.

I’m Waiting For The Day When Rush Limbaugh’s Pharmacist Writes A Book.

Disney Is Just Disney. It's A Company That's Very Good At What It Does - Controlling And Promoting An Image - Until Something Happens That It Can't Control Or Cover Up.

The Tv Commercials, Which Are Endless And Fairly Crass, Gave Birth To Brock, The Bad-lawyer Character In Razor Girl. In Real Life You Can Find Even Sleazier Examples Than Him.

My Books Are Character-driven. They're Not Driven By The Story.

I Got Overwhelmed By The Magnitude Of The Celebrity Culture In America. My Background Is As A News Journalist, And Newsrooms In The Us Are Shrinking - Investigation Teams Are Being Terminated Or Shrunk On Newspapers All Around The Country. The One Aspect That's Expanded Is Coverage Of Celebrity Culture.

As A Lobbyist He Had Long Ago Concluded There Was No Difference In How Democrats And Republicans Conducted The Business Of Government. The Game Stayed The Same: It Was Always About Favors And Friends, And Who Controlled The Dough. Party Labels Were Merely A Way To Keep Track Of The Teams; Issues Were Mostly Smoke And Vaudeville. Nobody Believed In Anything Except Hanging On To Power, Whatever It Took.

Jimmy Lee Baylis Was A Wise Man, And Knew Better Than To Talk Back To The Man Who Signed His Paycheck.

There's So Much Hate That We Direct Externally That We Forget We Have Our Own Psychos. But That's The Role Of The Satirist - You Have To Examine Your Own Country And Say, Look!

Here's My Rule: You Always Want To Pay Cash For Your Own Books, Because If They Look At The Name On The Credit Card And Then They Look At The Name On The Book Jacket, Then There's This Look Of Such Profound Sympathy For You That You Had To Resort To This. It Really Is Withering.

Unfortunately, Florida Is A Mecca For The Shyster Element, And There Are Apparently No Rules On The Kinds Of Advertising A Lawyer Can Do.

The Central Part Of The State Is More Remote And Less Scenic, And There's A Huge Agricultural Belt That Stretches From The South Of Lake Okeechobee To The Border Of Everglades National Park, Where The Restoration Effort Is Being Concentrated, .. Obviously The Movement To Save The Everglades Runs Up Against Agricultural Concerns.

That's What People Do When They Find A Special Place That Wild And Full Of Life, They Trample It To Death.

The Thieves Of Manhattan Is A Sly And Cutting Riff On The Book-publishing World That Is Quite Funny Unless You Happen To Be An Author, In Which Case The Novel Will Make You Consider A More Sensible Profession-like Being A Rodeo Clown, For Example, Or A Crab-fisherman In The Bering Sea.

Sunset On The Water Ought To Be A Quiet And Easy Time, But I Guess Some People Can't Stand A Little Silence.

I Won't Be Making Any Friends In The Corporate Suites.

I Think It's Always Good For The Author To Stay A Good Cattle Prod's Distance From The Actual Moviemaking.

Ironically, I Come From A Family Of Lawyers - My Dad, My Grandfather, And Now My Oldest Son. And Some Of My Very Best Friends Are Lawyers, Though They Don't Resemble The Ones That Appear In My Novels.

I'd Always Wanted To Write Books Ever Since I Was A Kid.

Garcia Wondered Why People With Jesus Stickers On Their Bumper Always Drove Twenty Miles Per Hour Under The Speed Limit. If God Was My Co-pilot, He Thought, I'd Be Doing A Hundred And Twenty.

Roy Remembered The Time He And His Father Had A Talk About Fighting. 'it's Important To Stand Up For What's Right,' Mr. Eberhardt Had Said, 'but Sometimes There's A Fine Line Between Courage And Stupidity.

I've Never Before Had The Same Main Character Appear In Consecutive Novels, But I Liked Yancy And His Attitude, And I Was Curious To See What Would Happen To Him After Bad Monkey. And I Liked The Idea Of Him Still Trying To Get His Detective Job Back While He's Stuck On Roach Patrol.

From My Experience, Politicians Are Much More Uncomfortable Being Made Fun Of Than They Are Being Preached At And Screeched At - You Know, And The Soapbox Routine. They're Much More Uneasy Knowing They're A Target Of Ridicule.

I'm Sort Of Fascinated By America's Fascination With Rednecks, The Whole Duck Dynasty Thing. Being A White Guy From The South, I Find It Amazing That So Many Tv Viewers Are Enchanted By Beards, Bad Dentistry And Moonshine Accents.

The One Word That No Politician Will Ever Speak, Is 'enough.' Enough.

Nobody With An Iq Higher Than Emergency-room Temperature Could Ever Believe That 'death Panels' Would Be Appointed To Nudge The Elderly Toward Euthanasia. Yet For Idle Entertainment, It's Hard To Beat Sarah Palin's Ignorant Nattering On The Subject.

Unfortunately, I Don't Get To Read Nearly As Much As I Want Because I'm Always Working On My Own Stuff, Either The Novels Or Newspaper Columns.

Disney's Something To Be A Little Alarmed About. It's Not Just A Little Theme Park Anymore. It's Now An Ethic And Outlook And Strategy That Goes Way Beyond Central Florida.

The First Rule Of Hurricane Coverage Is That Every Broadcast Must Begin With Palm Trees Bending In The Wind.

...right Now There's A Pair Of Bad Cops On Their Way Out Here To Shoot Me." "you Don't Know That." "yeah, You're Right," Stranahan Said. "they're Probably Just Collecting Toys For Tots. Now Go.

I Never Laugh Or Smile When I Am Writing. When I Come Home For Lunch After Writing All Morning, My Wife Says I Look Like I Just Came Home From A Funeral. This Is Not Bragging. This Is An Illness.

When I'm Working On A Novel Of My Own, I Try To Read Mostly Nonfiction, Although Sometimes I Break Down And Peek At Something Else.

Bangkok 8 Is One Of The Most Startling And Provocative Mysteries That I've Read In Years. The Characters Are Marvelously Unique, The Setting Is Intoxicating And The Plot Unwinds In Dark Illusory Strands, Reminiscent Of Gorky Park. Once I Started, I Didn't Want To Put It Down.

I'd Love To See A Good Script Of One Of My Books, In These Years Of Animations And Comic Book Sequels, And Had So Many Written Over The Years, But None Quite Clicked.

Hey. Sometimes To Conclusions.

There's This False Notion That This Is A Regional Phenomenon, When In Fact Every State In The Union Has Hardcore Rednecks. No Exceptions.

You Can Do The Best Research And Be Making The Strongest Intellectual Argument, But If Readers Don't Get Past The Third Paragraph You've Wasted Your Energy And Valuable Ink.

And In The Meantime Don't Jump To Conclusions.

Like Richard Price And The Late, Great Elmore Leonard, Matt Burgess Is One Of Those Cool, Quick And Funny Writers Who Can Turn A Seemingly Routine Crime Caper Into Something Special.

I Think In The Old Days, The Nexus Of Weirdness Ran Through Southern California, And To A Degree New York City. I Think It's Changed So That Every Bizarre Story In The Country Now Has A Florida Connection. I Don't Know Why, Except It Must Be Some Inversion Of Magnetic Poles Or Something.

Mrs. Bonneville Never Buckled Her Seat Belt, Even Though It Was Required By State Law; An Ardent Libertarian, She Opposed Government Meddling In All Matters Of Personal Choice.

It's Easy To Get Distracted By The Vaudevillian Aspects Of The Healthcare Debate.

I Still Do A Weekly Opinion Column For The Miami Herald, And It's Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel. Rotten Fish.

Y'see, I Get So Bored So Easily. I Like To Start With A Clean Slate Each Time. Sure, I'll Have Characters Drop In And Out Of Books But The Main Cast Of Characters Always Changes. Maybe I'm Wrong But I Think If Had The Same Joe Detective Guy Or Gal, I Wouldn't Write Them As Well; I Wouldn't Do As Good A Job.

A Bonus, Being A Writer, Is That The True-life Source Material Is Fabulously Bizarre. There's So Much Corruption, Violence And Free-floating Depravity That The Well Never Runs Dry, Whether You're A Novelist, A Journalist, Or Both.

The Greatest Sin For A Writer Is To Be Boring.

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