Readers are paramount. I live to write books for them.

My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about.

When it comes time to write the book itself I'll shut the lights out, picture the scene I'm about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Yes, I can touch type.

If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say

Too much screaming in Congress. Too much screaming everywhere.

She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

She was reflecting back on a truth she had learned over the years: that people heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted, believed what they wanted.