I've always been drawn to historical fiction.

When you read a book, you are letting another person distract your thoughts and work your emotions. If they are adept, there's nothing better than turning off and getting lost.

People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.

I didn't want to spend the next thirty years writing about bad things happening in the same small town - not least of all because people would begin to wonder why anyone still lives there!

I paid for my name a lot when I was growing up because other kids teased me.

My books are never about the crimes. They are about how the characters react to the crimes.

I think being a woman and writing frankly about violence has gotten me some attention, and as someone who wants people to read my books, I can't complain about that attention, but it does puzzle me that this is something reviewers focus on.

I taped the autopsy photos from Marilyn Monroe's death to my lunch box in fifth grade, and I would write stories in which someone inevitably died.

I set the goal of getting a book contract by age thirty.

I have a few unusual fans, as you can imagine, so I try to protect the privacy of my home life.

I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where, for the first time in my life, I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books.

Prior to the Civil War, most libraries were either privately owned or housed in universities or churches.

Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.

Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them. You don't read a book - you experience it. Every story opens up a new world.

Being a Southerner, I'm interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.

My dad believed in scaring us as we were growing up. Scaring the boys who wanted to date us more.

I've always been interested in violence, even as a teenager. I loved 'Helter Skelter' and books like that.

I think crime fiction is a great way to talk about social issues, whether 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'The Lovely Bones;' violence is a way to open up that information you want to get out to the reader.

I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.

Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.

I busted my chin open trying to be Evel Knievel on my bike. When it happened, you could see straight through to the bone, I thought my dad was going to pass out. It left a scar that I still have now.

It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.

If you wear them outside, they stop being pyjamas. I wear mine to the mail box, which is right in front of my house - that's my limit. Anything else is wrong.

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task.

I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.

As voters and taxpayers, we must demand that our local governments properly prioritize libraries. As citizens, we must invest in our library down the street so that the generations served by that library grow up to be adults who contribute not just to their local communities but to the world.

I love twins stories.

I think a lot of guys who are on the Internet a lot, they're kind of anesthetized to some of the violent language and all that because they see it all the time.

People don't just love mysteries. They are obsessed with them - especially the kind that are never definitively solved.

The most important lesson I have learned from spending years talking to law enforcement officers is that the vast majority of them really want to do a good job. They have a physical need to do a good job. And yet, we don't give them the resources that would help them.

Prosecutors and public defenders deserve to make a living wage.

My sister is dyslexic, and she's so smart, so intelligent in all of the ways that matter.

I write fifteen hours a day, stopping at Oprah-o'clock.

I'm going to name a name: Janet Evanovich. She writes the same book over and over, and I read every single one of them and eagerly anticipate them.

It's just my goal to deliver the best story I can, and I want to make sure each book is better than the last, and in order to do that, I have to take chances.

Men are more particular, and they're not going to grab something with a bodice-ripper cover on it.

I think some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.

I've always been drawn to dark stories. I enjoy reading Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, and Margaret Mitchell.

I love reading almost as much as I love writing.

Most of my books begin with a nap on my couch here, when I dream up characters and story lines, and then I write on my laptop in the recliner and handle the business side of email at my desk, which is sagging in the middle - maybe from so many words?

It was always my dream to write for a living.

I always wanted to be a writer. In the beginning, I thought I had to rewrite 'Gone with the Wind,' but eventually, I found my way and realized that wasn't me.

I grew up reading thrillers. Honestly, I was always drawn to the very detailed ones like Patricia Cornwell. I love details.

If you're going to write thrillers, you have to make a decision if you are going to be realistic or go off and over.

Women know how to scare other women.

Anyone who's been to high school with teenage girls knows how horrible girls can be.

We make assumptions: nurses should be nice, teachers should be good. But everyone has a dark side, some darker than others.

Southerners have this love of embellishment. Even when you read a police report, there's some backstory.

Random House is definitely invested in keeping libraries healthy.

It seems like women are always told, 'It is not your time.'