On gym days, I don't get to my desk until 4 in the afternoon, and everything except bedtime and the appointment with the liquid narcotic is pushed back a bit.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

As soon as I started writing Julia, by which I mean while writing its first sentence, I felt a sudden, reassuring charge of excitement. I knew it was going to work.

I generally wade in blind and trust to fate and instinct to see me through.

These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.

The actual Blue Rose murders, which lie at the core of the three novels, yield various incorrect solutions which assume the status of truth.

Instead, I was interested in what I guess I could call narrative indeterminacy, in questioning the apparent, taken-for-granted authority of any particular representation of the events in question.

I had a connoisseur's... appreciation of fear.

I write longer sentences than most of the others, maybe because I probably like Henry James more than they do.

If I planned everything out in advance, I'd expire of boredom.

When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.

I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.

Everyone wants to get better as they go along, but sometimes it's all you can do to stay consistent.

Each new book is a tremendous challenge.

There have been times when I reread - or at least leafed through - something because I'd sent a copy to a friend, and what usually happened was that I noticed dozens and dozens of clumsy phrases I wished I could rewrite.

However, I think I managed to reach a new level with Koko, and I will always be grateful for the experience.

On gym days, I don't get to my desk until 4 in the afternoon, and everything except bedtime and the appointment with the liquid narcotic is pushed back a bit.

Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary.

Dick Dart emerged from the ether during a flight from New York with my wife and children to Puerto Rico.

I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time.

Many fiction writers eventually want to feel that their work forms a single, unified entity.

An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.

My first real breakthrough collided with the last months of Callaghan's Labour government, which had every intention of enjoying my success as much as I did.

Nobody is surprised that women writers accurately represent male characters over and over again, no doubt because everybody knows that women understand men much better than vice-versa.

It's very satisfying. To perform the way you want to. And the way you know that you can.

What goes up must come down

Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.

Affection will burn cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to day and be piled up ever higher as the wintry years draw nigh.

There's every reason to believe there will be further attacks attempted against the United States. For us to spend so much time patting ourselves on the back because we got bin Laden that we miss the next attack would be a terrible tragedy.

I was suffering a divorce, and I was very unhappy because my children were very young. It hit me when a woman, a fan, was chatting with me. She was pleased to meet Big Bird because her children liked him and liked the show, but she didn't know that my face was streamed with tears.

You will not find a soulmate in the quiet of your room. You must go to a noisy place and look in the quiet corners.

I think Forever 21 is a great way to get in on the trends without spending a lot of money.

We taped all this and then got it transcribed and picked the best lines or ideas or ways to take a scene. I've done that many times, and it can improve the script but also wreck a perfectly good scene.

Keeping a lid on taxes is not just good for the taxpayer. It's a powerful way to force government to be more accountable, set priorities and spend smarter. Let me repeat that: more accountable, set priorities and spend smarter - that's what we need to be about.

English people are so trapped in this class paradigm.

I try to avoid typecasting by doing different roles.

It's different cultures that make the world go 'round at the end of the day.

Small businesses, you can give them capital, but what they often need as much is mentoring, advice and help with their business plan.

I think of New Yorkers as not taking the time to talk to someone they don't know.

I genuinely enjoy sweating out my frustrations and living a healthier life. My workouts are not all about vanity. They are about clarity for my mind and soul.

Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool.

Go beyond merely communicating to connecting with people.

You're only one workout away from a good mood.

The media is not at all homogeneous in the way it tells us about war.

If you're playing the character, you could say to yourself in 16 different ways, What if that didn't bother me? What if I knew exactly what he was talking about? What if I didn't get excited?

It is good to have an end to journey toward But it is the journey that matters in the end.

When things go wrong in your command, start wading for the reason in increasing larger concentric circles around your own desk.

I think there is a tendency in science to measure what is measurable and to decide that what you cannot measure must be uninteresting.