White-collar crime gets more outrageous by the second in America.

Capo, my first golden retriever, so loved to swim she once jumped off a cliff to get into Lake Superior.

I have a friend who lives in the South Side of Chicago. I helped out at a church charity there where they try to give a bit of cohesion to a desperate area. Everyone was very welcoming.

I live and die with the Chicago Cubs.

No agent wants to see a book until he or she has decided whether to pursue the relationship.

I love to sing. I'm a soprano.

The best source for finding an agent is called Literary Agents of North America. It's a complete list of agents, not only by name and address, but by type of book they represent and by what their submission criteria are.

I thought it was time for a tough, smart, likable female private investigator, and that's how VI came to life.

Reviewers said Ghost Country was rich, astonishing and affecting in the way it blended comedy, magic, and a gritty urban realism in a breathtaking ride along Chicago's mean streets.

I realised I'd never climb Everest but thought I could still write a book.

Around the time I turned 30, I wanted to publish a novel.

Write what you care about.

I'm a daydreamer.

The crime novel has always been my favourite genre.

My parents were liberal intellectuals but even they expected me to stay at home and look after my younger siblings and do the housework.

I grew up in conservative rural Kansas in the 1950s when it was expected that girls would not have a life outside the home, so educating them was a waste of time.

I spent 10 years as a marketing manager. I've found my experience in the financial world invaluable background for writing about white-collar crimes.

It took me nine months to write 60 pages. It was very frustrating.

I went to college at the University of Kansas, where I got a degree in political science.

Sometimes I think I'm a one-trick pony because I'm not very inventive about new ways of telling stories.

I'm a grandmother, and a mighty proud one.

Sisters in Crime now has more than 4,000 members worldwide.

I always wrote; my first story was published in the magazine The American Girl when I was 11.

Most people don't have the money to spend on advertising to create awareness among readers, nor do they have the contacts at newspapers or magazines to get their books reviewed.

I'm very honoured that there is a loyal following and I hope it continues.

Sometimes I panic and think I can't really write.

White-collar crime gets more outrageous by the second in America.

I'm lucky in having found the perfect partner to spend my life with.

I had wanted to write Ghost Country for a long time, but it wouldn't work.

The possibility of bringing white-collar criminals to justice is ever receding over the horizon.

People have less privacy and are crammed together in cities, but in the wide open spaces they secretly keep tabs on each other a lot more.

I wish I could remember where I put things. I spend half my life looking for my keys. With the other half I look for my glasses.

You get weird and unsettling behaviour in the country.

In 1986 we were trying to help women get in print, stay in print, and come to the attention of booksellers and libraries. At that time, books by men mystery writers were reviewed seven times as often as books by women.

Live disasters are wonderful attractions when youre safe on the other side of them.

When you feel lousy, puppy therapy is indicated.

An isolationist America is no bloody use to anyone.

My focus is that firearms are handled safely and that we can continue to enjoy them here in North America.

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

Generally students are the best vehicles for passing on ideas, for their thoughts are plastic and can be molded and they can adjust the ideas of old men to the shape of reality as they find it in villages and hills of China or in ghettos and suburbs of America.

Who cares about that stuff? This is America, not Jerusalem. I'm an American. Let Harry be a Jew.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

I'm about to become a member of the Chemists Society of America. I'm very proud of that.

It's a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It's America's genre.

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.

If we can just take a few companies, and use those as models, as examples, to show the rest of corporate America how they can become more competitive, that's what I'd like to do and that's what I hope to do.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

Gary Smith, when I came to America, taught me a great deal about racing.