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.

After my years in Hollywood, I got tired of apologizing for work that really wasn't mine to begin with.

Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.

The struggle is what teaches you.

I spent the first twenty years of my writing career preparing for the mystery genre, which is my favorite literary form.

Train yourself to listen to that small voice that tells us what's important and what's not.

Poise and indifference so often look the same.