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 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.

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

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block, the problem is idea block

He hadn't done anything. He hadn't needed to. Just being there was enough.

Giving does not impoverish us nor does withholding enrich us.

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.

Mature people never make difference of opinion a means of conflict.

I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.

Sobriety itself is today's high, for it is ultimately in the most centered consciousness that we find our power to transcend the world.

If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path.

No matter how difficult things are, and no matter how much grief and loss there is, you can turn it into something positive.

When you're not afraid to fail, you'll most certainly have the confidence to succeed.

None merits the name of Creator but God and the poet.