Clive Cussler
The culinary scene in Phoenix is incredible.
I've always liked Mexican food.
NUMA is basically trying to preserve our maritime heritage by finding lost shipwrecks of historical significance before they are gone.
I honestly thought I probably did sell 100 million books. That doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.
I'm always interested in something that's missing.
I was always a history buff.
I can appreciate other writers' works.
I have a large collection of town cars because when I was just a snipe in the gutter, growing up in Los Angeles, a town car drove by. I remember running in the house to get my mother so she could see it. It was utterly magnificent.
I was driving by an auto auction one day, and they were auctioning off a beautiful Hispano-Suiza. I started bidding even though I hadn't even signed up with the officials. The last bid was $50,000, and it was mine. And I thought, 'My God, what have I done? I've never spent more than $500 in my life.' That was the first one.
When we find a ship, we turn it over to the state or federal government. It's purely historical. I've never made a dime on any of it.
If you have some natural talent and really want to write, you should read the books of someone who's very successful in your genre. You don't want to plagiarize, but you want to learn from that author.
I love doing the research for the novels. For me, the writing is hard work.
I get up in the morning, get to the office, and write until about six o'clock in the evening.
I collect vintage cars, so you always find them in my books.
My son's name is Dirk - I named Dirk Pitt after him when he was about three years old.
I suppose, because I've been able to make a very good living writing books, that going out and finding another million dollars under the sea is not the fascination. The fascination is in finding the ship.
I was born about 80 years too late. If you were a kid in 1910, the Fourth of July was a big deal. You knew all about the Revolution, and you still had Civil War veterans.
If I were to say I'm looking for treasure, people would come up with the money. When I say I'm looking for a historic wreck, they're not interested.
To those of you who seek lost objects of history, I wish you the best of luck. They're out there, and they're whispering.Collection: Inspirational
I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.Collection: Block
To create something you want to sell, you first study and research the market, then you develop the product to the best of your ability.Collection: Research
Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off.Collection: Writing
I must say one thing about southern down-home brewed coffee with chicory. If you have worms, you'll never have them again.Collection: Coffee
Giordino...simply sighed in resignation. "Who else," he asked no one in particular, "but Dirk Pitt could tramp off into a blizzard on an uninhabited backwater island in the Antarctic and discover a beautiful girl?Collection: Beautiful
She was a Privately funded spy ship owned by the corporation and headed by Juan Cabtillo. The Oregon was his brain child and his one true love.Collection: Children