I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.

I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life.

If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

It is so beautiful but home is home, and home is best.

There is no chance for old fools.

Slow thinkers are part of the game too. Some of these slow thinkers can hit a ball a long way.

Tell me a fact, and I'll learn. Tell me a truth, and I'll believe. But tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.

I define a thriller as a big-stakes, multiple-viewpoint novel involving suspense, action, and mystery, in which the reader doesn't know everything but usually knows more than any single character.

College is great. It's the only time in life where you can write a check for 39 cents... and bounce it.

When combined, the small individual contributors of caring, friendship, forgiveness, and love, each of us different from our next-door neighbors, can form a phalanx, an army, with great capability.

When you're feeling lost, take heart. It's just your brain gathering the information it needs to make good decisions.

I love the energy that comes when I get on the mic. It keeps me creative and I love to hear what the fans want, what they love or hate about it.

Feedback for leaders is often nuanced and difficult to deliver. That said, hearing you are passive-aggressive from 10 different people described 10 different ways becomes hard to ignore.