To almost die is to know that one day you will, and to never again feel the same about anything.

Being gay is just one aspect of my very complicated life. I do not wear it on my sleeve.

I hate the term "mystery". That's not what I write. I think the Scarpetta novels are much more character-driven than an average puzzle solver. Writing should be like a pane of glass - there's another world on the other side and your vision carries you there, but you're not aware of having passed through a barrier to get there.

Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air.

When I was in second grade, my mother moved from Miami to this evangelical conservative environment in western North Carolina, two miles down the road from Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth.

I like to get to bed with a clear head.

On the last morning of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, I built a fire and sat facing a window of darkness where at sunrise I knew I would find the sea.