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.

I love twins stories.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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