Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.

If you wish for something hard enough, the fairy tales teach us, you can get it in the end. But it's hardly ever the way you thought it would be, and the endings aren't always happy ones.

There's nothing wrong with keeping your mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say.

Stephen King writes mass fiction but gets reviewed by the New York Times and writes for the New Yorker. Critics say to me, "Shut up and enjoy your money," and I think, OK, I'll shut up and enjoy my money, but why does Stephen King get to enjoy his money and get reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Book Review?

It's like if a young woman writes it, then it's chick lit. We don't care if she's slaying vampires or working as a nanny or living in Philadelphia. It's chick lit, so who cares? You know what we call what men write? Books.

My book sales make 'real writers' possible.

People say I'm not good at writing about men. My dad left when I was 16. Give me a break. I'm doing the best I can.