Grade school was perilous. ... I can see how I must have worried them. I was the kind of kid who, for no apparent reason, wept piteously or threw up on myself. On an especially scary day, I sometimes did both.

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

There are laws for everything except the harm families do.

any mystery writer is both magician and moralist ... two species of artist in short supply.

I caution writers all the time to slow down and pay more attention to the work in front of them than to the end result. I don't think you write one book and get anywhere. I think you write five books and then maybe you are finally on the right path.

Personally, I don't endorse the notion of mortality. It's fine for other folk, but I disapprove of the concept for me and my loved ones.

In my opinion, there's no condition in life that can't be ameliorated by a dose of junk food.