I like cream cheese in just about anything.

I'm always astonished to see how badly people can behave when they think no one is noticing.

When I started to write culinary mysteries, I did it because nobody was doing it anymore.

In a mystery, the sleuth must be believably involved and emotionally invested in solving the crime.

After I outlined 'Catering to Nobody,' I went and worked for a caterer. And the other thing I had to do was to talk to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department about how they investigated a crime.

I wanted to be a literary writer, so I wrote story after story and sent them to 'The New Yorker.'

One thing that improved my cooking skills was being a poor student in California... If you don't have much money, you have to learn to cook.

What one's goal should be is just to become a better writer and to tell different kinds of stories.

I told the caterer I'd work for nothing if he'd teach me about catering. I lasted one week full-time. It was exhausting.

Catering is extremely demanding financially and physically. It's a business.

Writing is work and cooking is relaxing.

Did he bleed?Well, of course. He took on a human form. That always makes them vulnerable, becoming human.

This universe is ocean of happiness where distance is measured in Smiles Per Hour

End of story. ‘Happily ever after’ fell on everyone like a guillotine’s blade.

I hadn't written a love story before and I hadn't written a novel with a happy ending before.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

Keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.

Don't build walls and shut people out of your life. To act as if another does not exist is a mean and cruel weapon

In the 20 years before Greece end up with the Euro, efforts to improve competitiveness through exchange rate and adjustments resulted only in temporary gains of competitiveness.

The good ideas will survive.

I'm a known reader. That's what I do with my time.