Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I'm not very happy idle. There's always this voice in my head that says, 'I should be writing.' "

Related Quotes:

" I'm 48 years old, not a kid anymore by any definition, but here is a universal truth that every adult at some point will realize: We are all always 17 years old, waiting for our lives to begin. "

" Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family, I have little time for anything else. "

" When you like something and you're pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don't ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it. "

" The preparation for building a series of thrillers based on a single character is kind of like the preparation for becoming a parent: The best part is the idea - wink, wink. "

" I don't find any real rivalries with crime and thriller writers anyway. That might sound a little Pollyanna, but for the most part the writers I compete with, if you want to use that word, it's a pretty friendly rivalry. I think we all realise that the boat rises and sinks together. "

" We're called New Jersey but we're actually the suburbs of New York. "

" Losing my parents was the most crushing thing that ever happened to me. I lost my dad when I was 26, and it changed my life entirely. "

" I pretty much only wear Lilly Pulitzer ties because my best friend owns the company. "

" Children learn much more from how you act than from what you tell them. There are times this worries me - we parents are rarely the role models we want to be. True for life. True for driving. "

" 'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won't work. "

" There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation. "

" You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!' "

" I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted. "

" I'm not a big sports fan. "

" I'm not a fan of self-help books - how can something be 'self-help' if the book itself is purportedly helping you? "

" More than once, I've wished my real life had a delete key. "

" If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills. Clearly I'm not meant to do anything else. "

" The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to. "

" My house has too many distractions. There's the email. There's checking my Amazon ranking. I know I'm the only author who's ever done that, ever. There's the fax. Too many distractions. I like to go out and write. "

" I can write pretty much anywhere if you give me time and some quiet. The home is not usually the best place because I have four children. It's usually pandemonium around here! "

" I am, after all, a thriller writer. I routinely delve into the darkest chambers of the human heart. I've written about murder, kidnapping, depravity, horror, violence, and disfigurement. "

" I once worked as a tour guide in the Costa del Sol of Spain. "

" I'm thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me. "

" Life may not always fall into neat chapters, and you may not always get the satisfying ending you're looking for, but sometimes a good explanation is all the rewrite you need. "

" The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn't know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman's 'Marathon Man.' That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me. "

" I love to make even villains people you can relate to. When you find out who did it, I think you almost like the person, which is not easy to do. "

" The most annoying and full-of-crap thing a writer says is, 'I write only for myself, I don't care if anyone reads it.' A writer without a reader doesn't exist. "

" In the end, we know what makes us happy. We also know what makes us unhappy. That's the irony. We know and yet we still mess it up. That's part of the human condition, no, and why we need to work on it. "

" When I'm writing, what I pretend subconsciously is that we're cavemen, we're sitting around the fire, and I'm telling you stories. If I bore you, you're probably going to pick up a big club and hit me over the head. "

" Hope can be the most wonderful thing in the world or it can crush your heart like an eggshell. "