"When I was eight or nine, there was a very scary case of a guy who murdered four children in my community. I had no conscious memory of it, but now I'm sure that we all must have felt for these kids. We must have felt it, but no one was saying anything. I wonder now how much that impacted on me without my knowing it. The past is never really past."

"I wrote my graduate thesis at New York University on hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and 1940s, so, for about two years, I read nothing but Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Cain and Chester Himes. I developed such a love for this kind of writing."

"I think there are two prevailing views of the suburbs in the States: either they're this sort of tedious place, where everyone is the same, buys the same food and drives around in their little minivans, or the view is that the suburbs are extremely perverse in a humorous way."

"I don't really consider any of my novels 'crime' novels."

"I also think a Hot Mom is someone who can connect with what's current in her kids' world."

"I think there is a generation gap. I personally look forward to, as our generation becomes the leaders, you are gonna see a change, and I think hopefully gay marriage will be a part of that country."

"When God put everybody here, I don't think that he had a master plan of a pecking order. That's not what you see in the Bible. I disagree with that notion, so in my estimation, we've all been put on this planet to share it. It is our duty and our obligation and our responsibility to make sure that we've done so in the proper fashion."

"The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have."