Writer

I think a lot of people are curious about what makes people do what they do, and I guess my curiosity isn't hidden in any way.

Feminism has been so co-opted, but the fact is, feminism benefits men as well.

I have a superhero complex. If I see anything bad happen, I run towards it, rather idiotically because, after all, what could I do?

I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.

Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.

I read extensively about serial killers and all sorts of things people get up to.

Women know how to scare other women.

Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.

I think chalking up human behavior to evil lets us all off the hook too easily.

Even 'Gone With the Wind' had a shocking, cold-blooded murder.

As the youngest of three girls, most of my childhood works were revenge fantasies against my older sisters, so of course the sisters in 'Pretty Girls' share some similarities to my own.

I set the goal of getting a book contract by age thirty.

I have a few unusual fans, as you can imagine, so I try to protect the privacy of my home life.

You can take risks with the characters and their development in a standalone novel.

Reading is exercise for our brains in the guise of pleasure. Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them.

I'm extremely introverted. I used to think it was shyness, but I got over that, so it must be door No. 2. It's still hard for me to be away from home much, and I have to make sure I get lots of time alone in my room when I'm touring.

The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'

I didn't want to spend the next thirty years writing about bad things happening in the same small town - not least of all because people would begin to wonder why anyone still lives there!

Librarians have always stood up for writers and readers in every kind of community across this country.

The most enduring stories in literature generally have some kind of crime at their center, whether it's the bloody butchery of 'Hamlet,' the lecherous misanthropes of Dickens or the lone gunman from 'The Great Gatsby.'