"Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be."

“I used the pen name because I knew I wanted to write better novels under my own name someday,”

Source : Talk City Network Interview, www.bookbrowse.com. 2000.

“I've never really found inspiration for story ideas in the news, but I'd say it certainly affects our lives in so many ways. I would say that certainly the stories of the day appear in the work - I just have never gone so far as to say, well, this particular event could influence a plot of an entire book.”

Source : "Michael Connelly on the Book He Had To Stop Writing". Interview with Nathan Rostron, www.bookish.com. February 4, 2013.

“Wanting to win races is detrimental to courage. You tend to run too conservatively because you want to wait and sprint. If you are there to force the pace, to CREATE greatness rather than to have greatness, Courageous moves are a part of your race.”

Source : Interview with Mick Grant, John Molvar, www.youthrunner.com. January 12, 2011.

“Music is more than just listening to it. People use the music for them protection at times.”

Source : Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

“I made up my mind that I'd get out of that place and I didI learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life, you just have to work till you make it.”

Source : S. E. Hinton (1995). “The Outsiders: That was Then, this is Now ; Rumble Fish”

“I want to keep growing. I should take a couple steps every year if I want to be one of the best players in the league.”

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives.”

Source : "Ride the Waves: How to Take Control of Your Life One Emotion at a Time". Book by Tracy Friesen, p. 386, April, 2013.

“We live in story like a fish lives in water. We swim through words and images siphoning story through our minds the way a fish siphons water through its gills. We cannot think without language, we cannot process experience without story.”

Source : Christina Baldwin (2010). “Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story”, p.77, New World Library