Jack Reacher is one of the sexiest characters in fiction.
— Karin Slaughter
Librarians have always stood up for writers and readers in every kind of community across this country.
I never want to write a book just to tell a story. There is always something deeper going on.
Women can be two different people - one person at home, another at work.
Southerners have this love of embellishment. Even when you read a police report, there's some backstory.
Women know how to scare other women.
I always wanted to be a writer. In the beginning, I thought I had to rewrite 'Gone with the Wind,' but eventually, I found my way and realized that wasn't me.
Most of my books begin with a nap on my couch here, when I dream up characters and story lines, and then I write on my laptop in the recliner and handle the business side of email at my desk, which is sagging in the middle - maybe from so many words?
I think some people are good at being alone, and some people aren't, and as a child, I really liked it.
It's just my goal to deliver the best story I can, and I want to make sure each book is better than the last, and in order to do that, I have to take chances.
I think chalking up human behavior to evil lets us all off the hook too easily.
The most important lesson I have learned from spending years talking to law enforcement officers is that the vast majority of them really want to do a good job. They have a physical need to do a good job. And yet, we don't give them the resources that would help them.
I think a lot of guys who are on the Internet a lot, they're kind of anesthetized to some of the violent language and all that because they see it all the time.
Reading is power. Reading is life.
If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task.
I busted my chin open trying to be Evel Knievel on my bike. When it happened, you could see straight through to the bone, I thought my dad was going to pass out. It left a scar that I still have now.
Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.
Denise Mina is probably one of the most gifted writers out there, whether it's mystery or literary or whatever label you want to give it.
Visual storytelling is at once immediate and subversive.
I grew up in a small town in Georgia where nothing bad happened - it was like Mayberry.
It seems like women are always told, 'It is not your time.'
We make assumptions: nurses should be nice, teachers should be good. But everyone has a dark side, some darker than others.
If you're going to write thrillers, you have to make a decision if you are going to be realistic or go off and over.
It was always my dream to write for a living.
I love reading almost as much as I love writing.
Growing up in Georgia in the southeastern United States, I was always reading and always kept to myself. I never felt isolated, though; I just liked being alone.
I'm going to name a name: Janet Evanovich. She writes the same book over and over, and I read every single one of them and eagerly anticipate them.
My sister is dyslexic, and she's so smart, so intelligent in all of the ways that matter.
Crafting a piece of gripping, narrative true crime that engages the world is not that different from crafting a piece of crime fiction.
I love twins stories.
Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.
If you wear them outside, they stop being pyjamas. I wear mine to the mail box, which is right in front of my house - that's my limit. Anything else is wrong.
I read about violent things. I think what I get out of that is entertainment by learning about different things, and reading the genre and getting an understanding of motivations. But at the end of the day, it's still a book, and I can walk away.
I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.
There's a tendency among some male writers to make the women in their stories weak and needing of rescue so that their hero looks like a manly man.
Graphic novels let you take risks that just wouldn't fly in the conventional book form.
I thought I had to write literature and add my name to the list of great Southern storytellers. Fortunately for me, no one wanted to read any of those stories. They got rejected by everyone. Sometimes, I would get a note saying they liked the writing, but the story simply didn't work.
Random House is definitely invested in keeping libraries healthy.
Anyone who's been to high school with teenage girls knows how horrible girls can be.
I grew up reading thrillers. Honestly, I was always drawn to the very detailed ones like Patricia Cornwell. I love details.
Oh, I'm completely OCD about neatness.
I've always been drawn to dark stories. I enjoy reading Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, and Margaret Mitchell.
Men are more particular, and they're not going to grab something with a bodice-ripper cover on it.
I write fifteen hours a day, stopping at Oprah-o'clock.
Prosecutors and public defenders deserve to make a living wage.
People don't just love mysteries. They are obsessed with them - especially the kind that are never definitively solved.
As voters and taxpayers, we must demand that our local governments properly prioritize libraries. As citizens, we must invest in our library down the street so that the generations served by that library grow up to be adults who contribute not just to their local communities but to the world.
I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.
It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.
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.
