“Choosing writing as a career, just by itself, is a measure of not bein...” — Justin Cronin Quote

Choosing writing as a career, just by itself, is a measure of not being a calculating person.

If you are writing any book about the end of the world, what you are really writing about is what's worth saving about it.

Writers who pretend that everything they're doing is completely new are full of it.

There's an outline for each of the books that I adhere to pretty closely, but I'm not averse to taking it in a new direction, as long as I can get it back to where I need it to go.

Every book has got its challenges. You run into a plot point that you can't figure out, or a scene that you struggle to write and have to write 50 times.

Traditional market researchers are cold and calculating and scientific.

I have to be a lot more calculating because I'm a very private person. I actually really struggle with the attention; I'm generally a pretty shy kind of a person. So it's tough figuring out how to manage it. But there are ways of managing it, and you just have to be smart.

I'm calculating, self-sufficient, reserved, and I enjoy being alone.

I'm not calculating enough in the way I approach writing.

Too many talented and supremely calculating politicians, including Nixon and Clinton, have destroyed their careers, or come close, by acting in ways that were obviously against their own interests.