David Baldacci

We put it on them.

And that's all we think.

And we never change our mind about them.

But once we do, you know, it's fascinating what you can find out.

And that was really the whole point behind the Nash-Steers relationship.

I wanted to show people that if you take the time to dig a little bit deeper than just the shallow end of the pool, it's amazing what you can find down there.

When I was a kid, the best books that I ever read were, it wasn't just that they were fun.

It was like when I walked away from them, I felt changed internally.

And I started thinking about things otherwise I never would have focused on at all.

And when humans do that, it changes who they are because you carry forward their perspective throughout the rest of your life.

You look at the world differently and that's what really good books do.

So when I write books, I try to examine the humans in it.

It's not just an action story.

I want you to dig down and what drives people to do stuff like this, whether it's good or bad or in between.

And guess what?

Good people do bad things and bad people occasionally do good things.

So that's what's so complicated about the world.

And I do try to do that in all my books to allow people to...

Look, I want people to get off their phones and actually live life again.

I want people to relate to people and try to understand them and not stare at things on the screen because we're missing so much in life.