My second husband and I were going through a bitter divorce, and I didn't have the money for a fancy-pants attorney. I didn't know how to fight, so I'd lie awake at night and think of ways to kill him. But I knew I'd get caught, so I decided to put it in a book and get paid for it! I always think it's odd that a whole career came out of that homicidal impulse.

You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself.

There's nothing quite as irksome as someone else's mess.

Writing is not about making a buck, not about publishers and agents. Writing is not about feeling good. Writing is about pain, suffering, hard work, risk, and fear.

If you're unhappy, change something.

It's been my observation, after years in the [insurance] business, that a certain percent of the population simply can't resist the urge to cheat.

People who've had happy childhoods are wonderful, but they're bland... An unhappy childhood compels you to use your imagination to create a world in which you can be happy. Use your old grief. That's the gift you're given.