Top Don Winslow Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Don Winslow Biography

Don Winslow is an American author who has written the screenplays for Savages, Satori and other adaptations of his novels with screenwriter/producer Shane Salerno.

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Don Winslow Quotes

The Americans take a product that literally grows on trees and turn it into a valuable commodity. Without them, cocaine and marijuana would be like oranges, and instead of making billions smuggling it, I’d be making pennies doing stoop labor in some California field, picking it.

California, Literally, Marijuana, Orange

Alcoholism, tobacco, drunk driving, these things will always be with us. There's always going to be a certain percentage of any population that is addicted to certain substances.

Addicted, Alcoholism, Drunk, Percentage, Population, Substance

If you let people believe that you are weak, sooner or later you’re going to have to kill them.

Believe, People, Sooner, Weak

And the most dangerous place on earth— Is where you’re safe.

Dangerous, Earth, Place, Safe

I don't recognize myself. I don't know who I am anymore. " And it's all fun and games until someone loses an I.

Fun, Games, Know, Who I Am

Bookstores never seem to know where to put me on the shelves. But I do. I love my genre and I love those writers, so I am happy to be considered a crime writer. That's what I consider myself.

Bookstores, Considered, Crime, Happy, Shelves, Writer

The Force deals a lot with the heroin epidemic, which I'm sorry to know people are experiencing in Canada.

Epidemic, Heroin, Know, People, Sorry

I think people will be surprised at some of the things about the shootings by policemen of unarmed African-American men. But I also think it's a balanced view. Balance has become almost a dirty word these days. It seems we're supposed to pick one side or the other. But these issues are extremely complicated. I think people will be surprised at some of that.

Dirty, Men, Policemen, Side, Supposed, Thinking

What happened with the opioid epidemic is the Mexican cartels made a very deliberate, corporate decision to undercut the price of opioids. What they discovered was they could increase production, increase potency and decrease the price, and sell it for a third of what the Big Pharma could, or street dealers could, for Big Pharma pills. North America, and to a slightly lesser extent Europe, is being flooded with this Mexican heroin as a direct result of the attempt to undercut American pharmaceutical companies.

American, Decision, Epidemic, Heroin, Mexican

The devil's in the details. The way I view my job is to bring the reader into a world they otherwise could not enter and let them see it through the character's eyes. And you can only do that with detail. The details make the characters distinct from one another. If you can give them those little grace notes, those little touches, that's what makes the reader relate.

Character, Characters, Eye, Giving, Notes, World

It's important to me that the reader goes on a ride with the characters, that you set context enough to know, "Okay, here's where we are in the world. Now we're just going to go inside this person's head, this guy's heart, this woman's ambitions and take it down to very, very small scale. "

Ambition, Character, Heart, Okay, Ride, World

With a 660-page book, you don't read every sentence aloud. I am terrified for the poor guy doing the audio book. But I do because I think we hear them aloud even if it's not an audio book. The other goofy thing I do is I examine the shape of the words but not the words themselves. Then I ask myself, "Does it look like what it is?" If it's a sequence where I want to grab the reader and not let the reader go then it needs to look dense. But at times I want the reader to focus on a certain word or a certain image and pause there.

Ask, Book, Focus, Pause, Poor, Thinking

We need to do something about gun violence in America. But every time one of these things happen, we say the same thing, and then we don't seem to be able to do anything. And that needs to change.

Gun, Violence, Things Happen, Same, Say

American cops didn't create that atmosphere, they're the ones though who have to live with it on a daily basis. These are generalisations; you can't make generalisations about hundreds of thousands of people. The New York Police Department, for instance, has 38,000 police officers in it. But most cops, when I talk to them, desperately care about the victims of gun violence. They see it, they experience it.

Gun, People, Police, Talk, Victims, York

There are various kinds of savagery: emotional, spiritual, economic, and cultural savagery.

Cultural, Economic, Emotional, Kind, Spiritual

A lot of times, writers are told write as big as you can, and that's not untrue. But at times I think it's better to write as small as you can, to start scenes with little personal details or people who are doing average every day human things. That, to me, lets the average reader into that person's life. "Yeah I eat breakfast. I take a shower. "

Writing, Thinking, Average, Scenes, Take

I start work at 5 in the morning and I have a wicked insomnia problem.

Insomnia, Morning, Wicked, Work

I'm a jazz guy and a Bruce Springsteen guy. So I wanted something more current, and edgier, and angrier. So I asked my kid to educate me about hip hop; he has an encyclopedic knowledge of it. And he did so. I found it to be much richer than I would've thought. I think some of the poetry in it is really spectacular. I threw rap into the book. I think I mentioned Kendrick Lamar. I'm really into Tupac these days. I love Nas, N. W. A.

Book, Guy, Kids, Love, Rap, Threw

American cops are the ones who are in the emergency rooms. They're the ones who go to the morgues. They're the ones who have to go tell the families that their son is not coming back, their husband, their wife, is not coming home that night. So when we talk about guns and gun violence and police, let's understand that as well. No one wants guns off the streets more than cops because cops are killed by those guns.

American, Coming, Home, Husband, Son, Understand

I have a life, I have a wife. I have an adult son who I'm very close to, and friends. I go hiking almost every day, four to six miles. In the summer, I'm out surfing or swimming. I think that real, human relationships with people mostly balance dark places in my work.

Life, Real, Son, Summer, Swimming, Work

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