Carl Hiaasen Quotes

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

I won't be making any friends in the corporate suites.

They have a crystalline sense of right and wrong; it disappears when they walk out the door with their M.B.A.

Here's all I know about happiness: It's slippery. It's unpredictable. It's a different sensation for everyone.

But one thing happiness is not is overrated. When you luck into some, enjoy every minute.

People say sometimes, gosh, that was brave of you to write such-and-such last week. 'Brave?' What do they mean 'brave?' It's right! How could you not write it?

He wondered if something was mentally wrong with him for being content with what he had

If anything is more irresistible than Jesus, it's Mickey.

It's easy to get distracted by the vaudevillian aspects of the healthcare debate.

Shreave flicked away the dead mosquito. "Don't these things carry the bird flu too?"
"No Boyd, that would be a bird.

There is no writer's block in a newsroom. There's only unemployment block.

I never laugh or smile when I am writing. When I come home for lunch after writing all morning, my wife says I look like I just came home from a funeral. This is not bragging. This is an illness.

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

Though Madeleine's face reminded Dr. Graveline in many ways of a camel, he was fond of her. She was the kind of steady patient that offshore trust funds are made of.

The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind.

I'd love to see a good script of one of my books, in these years of animations and comic book sequels, and had so many written over the years, but none quite clicked.

But Erin let it slide. The child was only four years old; she had a whole lifetime to learn about sadness. Today was for Dalmatians, ice cream and new dolls.

My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water.

Every writer scrounges for inspiration in different places, and there's no shame in raiding the headlines. It's necessary, in fact, when attempting contemporary satire. Sharp-edged humor relies on topical reference points.

The innards of Ping's G5 were supposedly computer-engineered with a process called "finite-element analysis," a term that for all I know was stolen from an old Star Trek episode.

A quick puke, two rails of blow and she was solid.

Don't order the fish," Yancy advised Merry when they sat down. "But it's a seafood joint." "More like a petri dish with menus. When they say 'catch of the day,' they mean infection." Brennan

Humor can be an incredible, lacerating and effective weapon.

The message, never stated but avuncularly implied, is that America's values ought to reflect those of the Walt Disney Company and not the other way around.

Mickey Cray was surprised to learn that Derek Badger didn't want any of his captive critters on location. Mickey had never wrangled for a nature show that used only wild animals, nor had he ever encountered a person less qualified than Derek to handle untamed specimens.

Coroners made Al Garcia jumpy; they always got so cheery when somebody came up with a fresh way to die.

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.

Remember what happened last time with the 'cuda.

To me, the newspaper business was a way to learn about life and how things worked in the real world and how people spoke. You learn all the skills - you learn to listen, you learn to take notes - everything you use later as a novelist was valuable training in the newspaper world. But I always wanted to write novels.

Florida needs a special prison for tourists. Not all tourists - just the ones who trash the place, rob, shoplift, vandalize, drive drunk, assault the cops, puke in the alleys, pee in the medians, and so on.

Love this description of minor character, Lou Zicutto: Lou was branch claims manager of the mammoth insurance company where Decker worked part-time as an investigator. Lou was a spindly little twit, maybe a hundred twenty pounds, but he had a huge florid head, which he shaved every day. As a result he looked very much like a Tootsie Pop with lips.

When I'm deciding to read a book, I never open to the first chapter, because that's been revised and worked over 88 times. I'll just turn to the middle of the book, to the middle of a chapter, and just read a random page and I'll know right away whether this is the real deal or not.

Right now there's a pair of bad cops on their way out here to shoot me."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, you're right," Stranahan said. "They're probably just collecting Toys for Tots. Now go.

It occurred to Yancy that, in the time they'd known each other, he hadn't once seen her look at her cell phone. She never texted, tweeted, Facebooked, Instagrammed, or posted a single picture when they were together. He found this behavior alluring.

Unfortunately, I don't get to read nearly as much as I want because I'm always working on my own stuff, either the novels or newspaper columns.

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.

Earl, you can't walk around with a lead slug up your bottom. It's bound to affect your outlook." Tool jerked his hand away. "I'll get it took care of, I swear." "It could well be the turning point in your life," she said. "What they call an epiphany. Or at least a catharsis." He assumed those to be the surgical terms for a bullet removal, and he promised Maureen he would schedule the operation as soon as he got a break in his bodyguarding schedule.

I'd always wanted to write books ever since I was a kid.

stick together like shit on a shoe.

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.

I'm waiting for the day when Rush Limbaugh's pharmacist writes a book.

Kids feel so strongly about what's going on today and what's happening to the world, and that's very inspiring. I feel more hopeful than ever before about the future.

No deliberative body is manifestly less qualified to make decisions about public education than our state Legislature. With a few shining exceptions, most of these clowns don't read, can't write, and clearly can't add.

And the Chamber of Commerce was handing out cyanide capsules.

Bangkok 8 is one of the most startling and provocative mysteries that I've read in years. The characters are marvelously unique, the setting is intoxicating and the plot unwinds in dark illusory strands, reminiscent of Gorky Park. Once I started, I didn't want to put it down.

My books are character-driven. They're not driven by the story.

Love isn't about thinking. You should know that by now.

The one word that no politician will ever speak, is 'enough.' Enough.

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.

I got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the celebrity culture in America. My background is as a news journalist, and newsrooms in the US are shrinking - investigation teams are being terminated or shrunk on newspapers all around the country. The one aspect that's expanded is coverage of celebrity culture.

The greatest sin for a writer is to be boring.

From the bow of the canoe she asked, "Do you know a rain dance?"
"First I need a virgin.

and in the meantime don't jump to conclusions.

Good satire comes from anger. It comes from a sense of injustice, that there are wrongs in the world that need to be fixed. And what better place to get that well of venom and outrage boiling than a newsroom, because you're on the front lines.

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

We've always been fascinated with movie stars and singers, but the fascination with people who really have nothing to offer is something new.

The gunshots awakened Mr. Ullman, a banker by trade and a recent arrival from Copenhagen, who looked out the bedroom window just in time to see a tremendous bull galloping across his yard with a thrashing young American impaled on its rack. Mr. Ullman quickly telephoned the police and informed them, as urgently as his newly-acquired English would allow, that an 'unlucky cowboy is being perforated seriously.

The central part of the state is more remote and less scenic, and there's a huge agricultural belt that stretches from the south of Lake Okeechobee to the border of Everglades National Park, where the restoration effort is being concentrated, .. Obviously the movement to save the Everglades runs up against agricultural concerns.

My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit. For dinner he's fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we're taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen. Don't you wish you were here?

I don't care if you pack it in fucking kryptonite, that lottery ticket ain't going up your ass.

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.

Garcia wondered why people with JESUS stickers on their bumper always drove twenty miles per hour under the speed limit. If God was my co-pilot, he thought, I'd be doing a hundred and twenty.

If God was my co-pilot, Yancy once groused to Burton, I'd have the fucking pedal to the metal soon as I left the garage.

Nobody from the Amazing Kingdom bothered to check with previous employers, such as the New York City Police Department, to inquire about allegations of bribery, moral turpitude, substance abuse, witness tampering and the unnecessary use of deadly force, to wit, the pistol-whipping of a young man suspected of shoplifting a bag of cheese-flavored Doritos.

She said there was no tactful way for a naked person to cope with a runny nose, especially while dancing. Orly grudgingly agreed.

Miami ... the floating-human-body-parts capital of America.

Disney world is an armpit,compared to Montana!!

to a perfectly terrible day.

Roy remembered the time he and his father had a talk about fighting. 'It's important to stand up for what's right,' Mr. Eberhardt had said, 'but sometimes there's a fine line between courage and stupidity.

The one thing a lifetime in the newspaper business teaches you is pace - you spend all your time trying to make sure that the reader's going to finish what you're writing.

One problem with age is that patience begins to ebb.

Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.

My father's a large man, very strong, but he says fighting is for people who can't win with their brains. He also says there are times when you've got no choice but to defend yourself from common morons.

Maureen closed her eyes. " Listen to me, Earl. It's yourself you ought to be thinking about. Life goes by so darn fast, every wasted moment is a crime." One blue eye opened and fixed on him. "And every crime is a wasted moment.

The victim's hand was contracted into a fist except for the middle digit, which was rigidly extended.

You from the IRS? The man's voice was deep and wet, like mud slipping down a drain.

Cell phone the night he died. She'd obtained this key information

As a lobbyist he had long ago concluded there was no difference in how Democrats and Republicans conducted the business of government. The game stayed the same: It was always about favors and friends, and who controlled the dough. Party labels were merely a way to keep track of the teams; issues were mostly smoke and vaudeville. Nobody believed in anything except hanging on to power, whatever it took ...

When you put on the suits, when you pretend you're honest and you're robbing at a far higher level, these guys deserve to ... well, to be in my novels, and I have special fates reserved for them.

Boyd Shreave tore the page from Eugenie Fonda's memoir and, with a contemptuous flourish, wiped his ass with it.

His mother wanted him closer to home. The funeral had been

That's the thing about being a Labrador retriever - you were born for fun. Seldom was your loopy, freewheeling mind cluttered by contemplation, and never at all by somber worry; every day was a romp. What else could there possibly be to life? Eating was a thrill. Pissing was a treat. Shitting was a joy. And licking your own balls? Bliss. And everywhere you went were gullible humans who patted and hugged and fussed over you.

A.Q., Keyes remembered, stood for Asshole Quotient. Skip Wiley had a well-known theory that the quality of life declined in direct proportion to the Asshole Quotient. According to Wiley's reckoning, Miami had 134 total assholes per square mile, giving it the worst A.Q. in North America. In second place was Aspen, Colorado (101), with Malibu Beach, California, finishing third at 97.

Bode Gazzer was five feet six and had never forgiven his parents for it. He wore three-inch snakeskin shitkickers and walked with a swagger that suggested not brawn so much as hemorrhoidal tribulation.

We get along fine. In return for food and shelter, they give me unconditional indifference.

I think in the old days, the nexus of weirdness ran through Southern California, and to a degree New York City. I think it's changed so that every bizarre story in the country now has a Florida connection. I don't know why, except it must be some inversion of magnetic poles or something.

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

Losing his hair. Ms. Chase and me,

So for a while, they sat peacefully in the swamp, listening to Mrs. Starch hum while the little panther slurped happily and the emerald leaves overhead shimmered and shook in the sunlight.

For now, there's nothing to do but strap on an attitude and act like I'm having a ball.

The gutted ruins of the Amazing Kingdom were razed, and the land was replanted with native trees, including buttonwoods, pigeon plums, torchwoods, brittle palms, tamarinds, gumbo-limbos and mangroves. This restoration was accomplished in spite of rigid opposition from the Monroe County Commission, which had hoped to use the property as a public dump.

Whatever happens, I'm glad we ate that bleeping lizard.

Sometimes you're going to be faced with situations where the line isn't clear between what's right and what's wrong.Your heart will tell you to do one thing and your brain will tell you to do something different. In the end, all that's left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.

sucking on a football.

Only because you're injured," she said, and kissed him again. He pulled her close. "How's this going to work with all these stitches? Do I have to keep standing?" "Well," whispered Rosa, "I suppose you could kneel." Yancy lifted her sundress. "You're the doctor.

Hey. Sometimes to conclusions.

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.

The man's a born straggler, Honey thought, another lucky exception to the rules of natural selection. A million years ago he would've been an easy snack for a saber-toothed tiger.

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

GRASS, LIKE NEARLY EVERYTHING else in China, is subject to political interpretation. Historically, the Chinese have taken a dim view of grass. In Peking's parks, the dirt is swept daily, since cleanliness is prized, but gardeners relentlessly uproot any tuft of grass. Grass breeds disease, generations of Chinese have been taught. Additionally, Communist doctrine teaches that grass is decadent, since it is usually associated with leisured classes and generates exploitation - one man hiring another to cut it.

The other day, one of the big shots was trying to say 'Nice shoes!' and he accidentally told a government minister that his face looked like a butt wart. Not good.