You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.

I don't make my own schedule - it's constructed around my sons' school schedules.

I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.

The Internet makes it possible for people like me to live the way I do now. Without it, I'd have to be in New York or some other city. I think the Internet is the greatest invention in history after antibiotics.

Listen to advice. You don't know how many writer's conferences I've taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field.

I've been a teacher at the college level, in composition mostly, and I've been an editor on magazines.

You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters insteresting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.

I really hate those books where the murderer turns out to be somebody you never heard of who pops up in the last chapter.

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

My husband used to take care of the business part of this, and after he died I found I wasn't really any good at it. I hate remembering who owes me what and bugging them if they haven't paid me.

I'd like to write a history, maybe of the Reformation.

Everybody is a True Believer. Everybody has a little nugget they're convinced of that is the opposite of the nugget on the other side. And they're convinced it's fact.

Nobody in real life ever takes me seriously.

A building without ornamentation is like a heaven without stars.

It is entirely up to us to invent our own lives.

People care about my fame, not me. But that's fine. I have my own life.

Reaching high keeps a player on his toes.

I feel there has to be a certain amount of improvisation as I'm writing, which means any idea or any commitment to a project is risky. It involves time; it involves gathering of material, and sometimes it just doesn't work. Sometimes it does. As I'm starting out on a project, I can't tell if it will click or not.

It took, for me, a long time to develop this idea of what to do on the radio. But from the beginning of my time in radio, I had pretty non-traditional tasks.

Other places are also generators of far-flung violence beyond their own borders - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are obvious examples - but none has as long a history of war, resistance, and terror as Chechnya.

I hated Woody Woodpecker and Scooby-Doo, but I was a cartoon freak.

The reason we have the stars twinkle at night is because the light is being kind of blurred by the atmosphere around the Earth. That is why the Hubble Space Telescope is so good, because it is above the atmosphere. So it is kind of like looking at the sun from the bottom of a swimming pool, versus looking at the sun above the swimming pool.

I met my second husband on a bus. We looked at each other and that was it. We were both married to other people at the time and behaved badly, but we didn't seem to have any choice. We were very happy for nearly 50 years and would still be together if it wasn't for the bloody railways.

My dad likes to recite the story of 'Pablo the Donkey' before dinner to teach us the real meaning of Christmas. Every year, it's the same; every year, we cringe!

Having spent so much of my life with Shakespeare's world, passions and ideas in my head and in my mouth, he feels like a friend - someone who just went out of the room to get another bottle of wine.

Without Police Woman I wouldn't have had a career. The show started about the same time the women's movement was taking off. Ours was the first prime-time one-hour show featuring a strong, professional woman. It paved the way for other series to follow.

You can't always be nice. That's how people take advantage of you. Sometimes you need to set boundaries.

I think that Valentine's Day is only as good as you want it to be. You know, I don't think it should be anything fancy, nothing crazy. As long as you're spending time with that person that's special, I think that's a great Valentine's Day.

The pilot came back and said he had just heard that Kennedy was shot.

I probably have more friends from 'Twilight' than I've ever had in my whole life.

Justice is lame as well as blind, amongst us.

People make their own fates, and if enough of us make our fate to be space explorers, perhaps we can actually get some space exploration done.

In looking for humor, keep in mind this guideline: Sometimes it takes a little time to see the humor in your upsets; you may not find something to laugh about immediately.

I state for the record that I have never sought funds from any POW family, nor led them to believe in any way that we were going on a mission to rescue their specific missing loved one.

I play golf just about every week. I'm playing on the Senior Tour now - super seniors - I'm a super senior.

People who are friends with me and who know me, know a side of me that is totally not cold.

I had something called the back of the chair test. Where I sit, we don't sit like you and I do. I can see a sliver right behind them and they come out and they sit like this like god students and they don't touch the back of the chair.