Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.

I always think the insecurity is going to go away, but it's always there. Only bad writers think they're good.

There is the old catch-22 line that a mentally unstable person can't know, as per their illness, that they are unstable. But that was wrong. You can and do have the insight to see your own crazy.

I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.

The most annoying and full- of- crap thing a writer says is, I write only for myself, I don't care if anyone reads it. A writer without a reader doesn't exist.

Hope is cruel. Hope reminds me of what almost was. Hope makes the physical ache return.

A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made.