Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

People need a moral code, to help them make decisions. All this bio-yogurt virtue and financial self-righteousness are just filling the gap in the market. But the problem is that it's all backwards. It's not that you do the right thing and hope it pays off; the morally right thing is by definition the thing that gives the biggest payoff.

I found out early that you can throw yourself away, missing what you've lost.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Most people are only too delighted to wreck each other's heads. And for the tiny minority who do their pathetic best not to, this world is going to go right ahead and make sure they do it anyway.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

When you're too close to people, when you spend too much time with them and love them too dearly, sometimes you can't see them