Daniel Suarez

We need to build change in to our systems and let these systems evolve as circumstances change. Change is inevitable, but we need to do a better job of dealing with it, because when we start building huge gleaming monoliths, I think we start getting into trouble. ”

When you write a high-tech thriller, and then people in the defense establishment start calling you - people I can't name - you feel you've hit a nerve. ”

I'm against unanswerable concentrations of power, whether that be government or private industry or religious figures - anybody who is not accountable to the larger social climate or society for the power they wield, that concerns me. I'm very pro-democracy. ”

I think if I were to express my wish, it would be that we are more regionally self-reliant. And I don't mean people being survivalists, I mean regionally self-reliant. So that you have these individual cells. The idea of having different solutions in different areas, so that we have a very robust, durable civilization. ”

If your data is out there earning money for somebody, you should have a say in it. ”

Neal Stephenson is great. He can write about a white wall for six pages, and it sounds fascinating. I read the whole 'Baroque Cycle' and 'Cryptonomicon.' ”

We need to take a leaf out of nature's book. Any species that clones itself will eventually be attacked by a parasite, leading to an inevitable population crash. ”

I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point. ”

I think that for all of the dangers of technology spreading, I think it is more dangerous in some ways that it doesn't. My simple reason for that is we've got 7 billion people on the planet, and we have these very serious problems, and I think we don't know who's going to have the answers to the problems that are coming around the bend. ”

I've read one too many thrillers that had really horrible technology in them. ”