Carl Hiaasen Quotes

"The greatest sin for a writer is to be boring." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "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." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Sunset on the water ought to be a quiet and easy time, but I guess some people can't stand a little silence." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "There is no writer's block in a newsroom. There's only unemployment block." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "One problem with age is that patience begins to ebb." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Unfortunately for novelists, real life is getting way too funny and far-fetched." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "My humour has always come from anger, but I have to make sure I don't just get angry and jump on a soapbox." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Actually it was the mark of the stupid, which is what you get for sitting under a tree during a thunderstorm." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "I've always enjoyed making people laugh. But in order for me to be funny, I have to get ticked off about something." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "When you're given a newspaper column, you're not being paid to sit on a fence and scratch your chin and say 'On the one hand this' and 'On the other hand that.' You're getting paid for your opinion." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "If you write satire, the guilty pleasure these days is that there's just so much material about. On the other hand, if you have a family it can be depressing." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "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." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn't." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Everybody's idea of a great book is different, of course. For me it's one that makes my jaw drop on every page, the writing is so original." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Humor can be an incredible, lacerating and effective weapon." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "I've never progressed very far from my days as a smart aleck in middle school." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "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." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Mickey Cray had been out of work ever since a dead iguana fell from a palm tree and hit him on the head." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "I don't have an e-reader. One reason is that I like to dog-ear the page when I find a particularly good sentence or passage." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "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." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "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

 "I'd always wanted to write books ever since I was a kid." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "It's easy to get distracted by the vaudevillian aspects of the healthcare debate." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "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." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "That's what people do when they find a special place that wild and full of life, they trample it to death." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "I’m waiting for the day when Rush Limbaugh’s pharmacist writes a book." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "The one word that no politician will ever speak, is 'enough.' Enough." ~ Carl Hiaasen

 "Jimmy Lee Baylis was a wise man, and knew better than to talk back to the man who signed his paycheck." ~ Carl Hiaasen