Even if you live in a big city, everybody lives in a small town. We identify ourselves by our neighborhoods - 'I live in the Village, or in Chelsea.'

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.

Graphic novels let you take risks that just wouldn't fly in the conventional book form.

Jack Reacher is one of the sexiest characters in fiction.

Even 'Gone With the Wind' had a shocking, cold-blooded murder.

Equal access to reading is fundamental to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

With 'Pretty Girls,' I saw the opportunity to talk not just about crime but what crime leaves behind.

As much as we would like to deny it, reading is not vital to human survival.

Growing up in Georgia in the southeastern United States, I was always reading and always kept to myself. I never felt isolated, though; I just liked being alone.

It sounds pretentious to say I 'divide' my time, but when I am home, that usually means my house in Atlanta or my cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. The latter is where I do the majority of my writing.

Reading is power. Reading is life.

I read a lot of true crime growing up - 'The Stranger Beside Me' by Ann Rule about Ted Bundy.

No crime lab in the world looks like the 'CSI' ones because there's simply not the money for all those fancy machines.

I never really fitted in, because I've always been interested in really dark things.

As a writer, I've always felt it's my job to be extremely careful when writing about victims, especially women.

When I became a published writer, I said, 'Whatever I can do to help the libraries I want to do,' so all of my book tours since then have involved me coming to a library and talking about how important libraries are for a community.

Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

I thought I had to write literature and add my name to the list of great Southern storytellers. Fortunately for me, no one wanted to read any of those stories. They got rejected by everyone. Sometimes, I would get a note saying they liked the writing, but the story simply didn't work.

Flannery O'Connor was a revelation for me. When I read her, I was very young, and I didn't understand what she was doing. I didn't see any of the Catholicism or any of the social stuff.

Visual storytelling is at once immediate and subversive.

When I was growing up, my stepmother's sister was the chief detective in one of the adjoining towns, so she piqued my interest in crime.

Usually, when inspiration strikes late, the light of day reveals that I haven't gotten an idea for a book so much as a psychiatric case study.

I think a lot of people are curious about what makes people do what they do, and I guess my curiosity isn't hidden in any way.

I read about violent things. I think what I get out of that is entertainment by learning about different things, and reading the genre and getting an understanding of motivations. But at the end of the day, it's still a book, and I can walk away.

I certainly went to high school with some mean girls, and I would not wish that hell on anybody.

I love puns. I've been known to turn the car around just to take advantage of a good pun situation. It really is the highest form of humor.

My job isn't to preach to people, it's to entertain them. I like letting the characters speak for themselves.

I think chalking up human behavior to evil lets us all off the hook too easily.

As awful as crime can be, it's what happens afterward - the struggling to get out of bed, to put one foot in front of the other - that alters people.

Libraries are the backbone of our education system.

The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'

Oh, I'm completely OCD about neatness.

Pushing the boundaries of polite society does not just fall under the purview of crime fiction authors.

Crafting a piece of gripping, narrative true crime that engages the world is not that different from crafting a piece of crime fiction.

My typical morning involves some time on the treadmill, but obviously I skip that a lot. Mostly, I wake up, check my email, then get to work on the various interviews and questions and phone calls that come with being an author.

I'm extremely introverted. I used to think it was shyness, but I got over that, so it must be door No. 2. It's still hard for me to be away from home much, and I have to make sure I get lots of time alone in my room when I'm touring.

As a Southerner, I love obstacles for my characters.

I know the cadence of the language and the voice of Atlanta because I've lived here for so long.

When I was little, my grandmother would take me to church with her, and she would introduce me to people.

I read extensively about serial killers and all sorts of things people get up to.

I never felt isolated; I just liked being alone. I think that some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.

When I'm on a good go, I can do 12, 13 hours of writing.

I could type in a closet and be fine. It's just a matter of cocooning myself. Just me and the story.

Feminism has been so co-opted, but the fact is, feminism benefits men as well.

I'm really boring. I get up early. I go to bed early. I don't smoke or drink. I mean, I'll eat a cupcake. I'm just not a crazy, stay-out-all-night sort of person. I love writing.

The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether it's the bloody butchery of 'Hamlet,' the lecherous misanthropes of Dickens or the lone gunman from 'The Great Gatsby.'

Good writers know that crime is an entre into telling a greater story about character. Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

I always say 'thriller;' if they see you're a woman - and you're a blond woman - people assume you're writing about cats and romances where somebody has died.

I have a lot of men who will say to me, 'I don't read books by women, but I like you.'

Like every Southern writer, I thought that I needed to write the next 'Gone With the Wind.'