I've always loved books. My mother told me that before I could talk, I'd babble in my crib as I turned the pages of my little cloth books, apparently telling stories to go along with the pictures.

Life consists of two sides ... light and dark. Joy and sorrow. Without a balance, one cannot fully experience a full and well-rounded life.

Never get in the middle of someone else's quicksand.

I've always found ideas everywhere, but my favorite place is Nordstrom, because of their liberal return policies for those ideas that don't work out.

Reporters ... most were carrion who fed on human tragedy.

Most of the writers I know have somehow managed to stay in touch with that inner child who's never heard of such a thing as an internal editor.

One of the reasons writers are never satisfied with their work is because they're always striving to do better.

If you don't have a burning passion for writing, how can you expect anyone else to be moved by what you write?

I've always read suspense, so raising the stakes to life and death situations in my romance plots seemed natural.

Nothing about my life or my career has been linear.

Bruises fade. Death is permanent.

The land of the free full of freedom is the home of the brave.

Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.

When I began my humanitarian work, I understood that in order to gain credibility I needed patience, commitment and unwavering perseverance. I needed to ignore the skeptics.

There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

It makes me upset, if not angry, when people assume that there can be no morality without a religious framework. If there's a moral framework without all that religious stuff, it's more valuable.

A Director Makes Only One Movie in His Life. Then He Breaks It Into Pieces and Makes It Again.

A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose - a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.

No matter what we've done, no matter the disappointments and sullied blunders, today is the opportunity to do right by ourselves.

People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.