When you grow up with a name like Brad Thor, people expect you to be 6-foot-4 and a pile of muscles.
What has bothered and angered radical Muslims is that I'm a non-Muslim writing anything at all about Islam. But this is fiction, and I don't think Islam is above criticism or fictionalization any more so than Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism or Hinduism is.
Less really is more. It's a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they're talking about by going too far with description. I think you've got to keep it short, crisp and clean.
From the political angle, I'm trying to be apolitical if you will. I mean people say, 'Are you a red state or blue state?', I say, 'I'm purple.' I think there are great ideas on both sides of the aisle and neither side has cornered the market.
I've got more ideas for books than I'll ever be able to use in my lifetime. I'm very fortunate like that.
Even one death is horrible.
Well, my books - I think one of the hallmarks of my thrillers is that they're based in reality.
I always have a different way of looking at things.
Authors should do multiple submissions to agents. I mean, that's the way the business world works and whether or not the industry likes it or not, they can't stop you from submitting to multiple agents and you know what? If an agent misses out on you because they took too long with your query letter, tough luck for them.
There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.
The reason socialism has failed around the world every time it's been tried is because people in socialist countries have looked at the United States and have said if they can have it that good, we can. It's a failed, flawed ideology, but if you ask socialists why it's always failed, it's because the United States has stood in the way.
My wife has a good sense of humor, and instead of calling me psychic with my novels, she simply refers to me as being 'psycho.' That's because multiple things in my books have come true.
After the Berlin Wall came down and Communism was on the run, I looked around and wondered what the next threat to the United States would be.
My number one goal as a thriller writer is to entertain you. But I've got a chance to not only entertain people, but have them close my book and be smarter having read it.
I have been blessed to have had many excellent teachers. The further I get away from school, though, the more I realize that the greatest teachers in my life have come from outside of academia.
When I came to New York as a writer, I was taken with the idea that you're only getting in on bridges and ferries and through tunnels. The idea behind 'Takedown' is that it would be very hard to get out.
Visiting Lucerne is like going to Disneyland: You can't imagine that it is real because it looks like a movie lot.
I had been fascinated with Islam since college - particularly how it could inspire such fervor in our modern age and move a significant number of its followers to horrific acts of violence. That invisible hand moved me to study more and more about Islam.
My #1 job as a thriller author is to give readers the best white-knuckle thrill ride I am capable of. I am first and foremost in the entertainment business. If that suspenseful ride is also terrifying because it hits really close to home, then I am once again doing what I am supposed to do as a thriller author.
My intent is not to inflame Muslims but to entertain readers of great thrillers. At the end of the day, I want people to see a good protagonist struggle against serious odds and do so with courage and honor and integrity.
