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.

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.

I like cream cheese in just about anything.

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.'

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.

Never make a sales pitch as the way you introduce yourself. What you CAN say is how you help people and businesses.

Champions keep playing until they get it right.

More than a shadow and less than a soul.

I hold in my heart that rebellious spirit of youth that demands change.

Could you tell night from day? No, I regard all such distinctions as logically impossible.

Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been.

Where are the flamboyant characters?! This is what America desperately needs right now! Flamboyant intellectual characters who can cut different ways. And, that's just what I'm missing.

There's a sort of wooly headed duckiness about you. If I wasn't so crazy about Marmaduke, I could really marry you Bertie.

When I turned 36 I realised - the likelihood is that in four years time I'll be 40.

Women blame men for their own singlehood.