I spend eight months outlining and researching the novel before I begin to write a single word of the prose.

I also try very hard to create characters - both heroes and villains - with psychological depth.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.

If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

I was editor of my high school literary magazine and a reporter for the school newspaper.

When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.

Love is a power which produces love.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.

No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them.

Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.

Having two bathrooms ruined the capacity to co-operate.

I have the coolest parents.

If I were somebody else looking at my character, I'd be like, "She's beautiful." I'm practicing. I'm not succeeding.

Here's one thing I can't understand: people who are friends with their exes.

The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it.