There are some professions, of course, where licensing is important. For example: If there's someone out there claiming to be a top heart surgeon whose only qualifications are having played Operation as a child, then I'm going to have a problem with that. I'm definitely going to say that jail time is appropriate in this instance.

To be an Instagram model, you absolutely cannot just post pictures of yourself in a bikini for the sake of people seeing you in a bikini - even if that is exactly what you are doing. No, you need to caption these photos with an inspirational quote so that people will know that you are not just a butt, you're a gosh dang philosopher.

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

Random House is definitely invested in keeping libraries healthy.

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

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

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

Women know how to scare other women.

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.

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

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.

It was always my dream to write for a living.

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?

I love reading almost as much as I love writing.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Prosecutors and public defenders deserve to make a living wage.

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.

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