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" Some of the most disturbing, sick relationships I've witnessed are between long-time friends, and especially mothers and daughters. "

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" I was not always someone who wanted to get married or thought I would get married, so being a true writer, I was always navel-gazing: 'What are good marriages? What are bad marriages?' "

" The funny thing, I guess, is that my husband ended up being the muse of a book about the worst marriage in the world, because if he hadn't consistently said, 'Don't censor yourself, don't worry about me' - if he'd been anxious and worried about it - then it would never have gotten written. "

" Female violence is a specific brand of ferocity. It's invasive. A girlfight is all teeth and hair, spit and nails - a much more fearsome thing to watch than two dudes clobbering each other. "

" I get really tense during the first draft. Really tense. That's not great for my family, because the first draft usually takes about a year. "

" The newspaper industry was built on the penny dreadfuls. "

" As a kid in the eighties, I didn't need much disposable income. I went to Catholic school - white shirt, plaid skirt - so fashion choices were limited. But youth finds a way. For me and my schoolmates, neon argyle socks were a crucial barometer of coolness. Hair ribbons, too, and they didn't come cheap. "

" I tend to write about dark things that happen in a very domestic setting 'cause that, to me, is much scarier than the unknown. "

" I was not a nice little girl. My favorite summertime hobby was stunning ants and feeding them to spiders. "

" I would love to do a full-scale graphic novel. "

" I think women are very ambidextrous. We don't think twice about reading a book or a movie starring guys. But for guys, it's, like, 'Oh my God, that's a woman thing.' So with my son, I very carefully portion out the female heroes and characters to make sure he's getting an equal amount. "

" I could not have written a novel if I hadn't been a journalist first, because it taught me that there's no muse that's going to come down and bestow upon you the mood to write. You just have to do it. I'm definitely not precious. "

" A theme that has always interested me is how women express anger, how women express violence. That is very much part of who women are, and it's so unaddressed. A vast amount of literature deals with cycles of violence about men, antiheroes. Women lack that vocabulary. "

" Writing has certainly helped me explore about 20,000 versions of my authentic self. I suppose that's what most writers discover if they write long enough: there are a lot of selves roaming around in there. "

" I'm all for whatever transitions the book properly to a movie. "

" I always loved scary movies, and my dad was a film professor. "

" A great thriller, to me, is more about creating a sense of unease: a queasiness that comes with knowing something is not quite right. "

" There are so many good books, I don't want to only read within one particular type. "

" I love Robin Wright's character in 'House of Cards' because she's a bona fide villain. She's a not-nice person in a believable way; you can see her working in the world. "

" I like westerns, fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, thrillers, and I try to avoid the word 'genre' altogether. A good book is a good book. "

" As much as I really like the screenwriting thing, the novel is where the author has so much control. "

" I always loved ghost stories and haunted house stories, whether they were done in a fantasy way or done in a realistic way. "

" One of my rules about writing exercises is you never are allowed to put them in your book because it's just too tempting. You try to shoehorn things that don't belong. "

" There's a book by Anne Rivers Siddons called 'The House Next Door' that I just think is one of the all-time great haunted-house stories. I think that's one of the all-time greatest. "

" The best crime reporters don't mind charging in - but they also know how to do it as decent human beings. "

" There are no really new stories anymore. "

" My favorite game was one I invented with my cousins called Mean Aunt Rosie, where I was a deranged maiden aunt who chased them around the house. "

" Even good characters have their dark sides, and I think it is important that women aren't seen as innately good. "

" The midwest is great because it hasn't been entirely claimed. There's more room to write about it; it's harder to write about New York, because even if you've never been there, you think you know what it's like. To do it in any sort of fresh way is trickier. "

" Kansas City is truly an awesome town. "

" I've wondered if 'Harry Potter' would have been as big if it was 'Harriet Potter.' Now that I've written a screenplay - and raising a son in particular - I'm looking at story content and realizing how limited women are onscreen. "