For thousands and thousands of American kids, libraries are the only safe place they can find to study, a haven free from the dangers of street or the numbing temptations of television. As schools cut back services, the library looms even more important to countless children.

The first time I remember really being excited about a book was The Count of Monte Cristo.

'Torts' more or less means 'wrongs'...One of my friends said that Torts is the course which proves that your mother was right.

People talk of me as being the inventor of the legal thriller.

I adore the company of other writers because they are so often lively minds and, frequently, blazingly funny. And of course, we get each other in a unique way.

I have a hard time isolating what it is in myself that makes me so fascinated with the theme of identity, because I came from a normal upper middle-class family. And yet, as I look back at my books, the uses of power, issues of identity, they have - it's recurrent. It happens again and again.

The truth of the matter is that the people who succeed in the arts most often are the people who get up again after getting knocked down. Persistence is critical.