I always wrote; my first story was published in the magazine The American Girl when I was 11

I wish I could remember where I put things. I spend half my life looking for my keys. With the other half I look for my glasses.

White-collar crime gets more outrageous by the second in America.

All food starting with p is comfort food: pasta, potato chips, pretzels, peanut butter, pastrami, Pizza, pastry.

I went to college at the University of Kansas, where I got a degree in political science.

I spent 10 years as a marketing manager. I've found my experience in the financial world invaluable background for writing about white-collar crimes.

The possibility of bringing white-collar criminals to justice is ever receding over the horizon.

When you feel lousy, puppy therapy is indicated.

I live and die with the Chicago Cubs

I have a friend who lives in the South Side of Chicago. I helped out at a church charity there where they try to give a bit of cohesion to a desperate area. Everyone was very welcoming

Capo, my first golden retriever, so loved to swim she once jumped off a cliff to get into Lake Superior.

So much of love is imagination -- its over-activity, its over-ambition, its over-the-top faith.

As long as I breathe, I live in love, in the light of life.

And I here make a rule-a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting-only the deeply personal and familiar.

No violence, gentlemen — no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!

If you never mention the Lord in conversation with each other,isn't that proof that you aren't so concerned about Him?

I didn't want people to say his brother Bing sings better than he does.

When a movie succeeds, it takes me to another world where I don't think about it and I'm just immersed.

If you're into what you're playing, that's the most important thing.

I have learned to respect ideas, wherever they come from. Often they come from clients. Account executives often have big creative ideas, regardless of what some writers think.

It is exceedingly difficult to maintain a sense of absence without turning that absence into some kind of presence