I think what I've recognized over the years is that I'm very, very bingey, extremely bingey when it comes to writing.

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.

Everyone I know who used to be in the intelligence community is moving into the corporate world.

Ambiguity depletes as your budget rises.

I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?

You have to know human behaviour … And the quality of your writing is absolutely capped at your understanding of human behaviour. You’ll never write above what you know about people.

The people in the Philippines are so extraordinarily nice.

No one can help you write. No one can teach you how to write.

Different people work different ways.

Fear changes everything. We're animals, and when we get afraid we act like animals. I'm not exempt from that.

I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.

Every morning brings thousands of opportunities

Fruit forced is never half so sweet / As that comes quite in season.

We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally.

I don't want to be the Hollywood girl... I'm Southern and old-fashioned.

When you decide to walk by faith, you don't get rid of trials. You learn to overcome them.

In the life of a real writer, nothing is ever lost, no word you write is a waste of your time or energy.

I thought I was a pretty good writer, but I didn't have anything to write about. I wanted to go out in the world, have some adventures and then write about them.

On an overcrowded planet where more species slip toward extinction every day, should one species have the right to multiply and consume at will, even as it nudges others to oblivion?