American Quotes

Post-apocalyptic novels tell you that in the future there is some great war. I would tell you that most cops say that it's going on right now.

My secret vice is Sudoku puzzles. Can't stop playing them. My parents are accountants. I blame them entirely.

Mental illness is a disease and organic mental illness of young kids is becoming more and more of a disease... we do need to talk about it.

It's kind of the yin and yang that fascinate me. That for all the evil men do, there are also people who work obnoxiously long hours and sacrifice their personal lives because it is a calling - if they don't keep our streets safe, if they aren't there to advocate for and save beaten women and childr

It is difficult to get men to pick up a female author. Women will read men, but men won't read women.

I'm very intrigued by e-books, the topic du jour in the industry today. As a number one bestselling Kindle author, I love the way e-books make an author's backlist accessible to new readers. Of course, price point remains a source of concern. Personally, I don't have any of the answers, but I'm intr

I'm unique for a suspense author in that I don't have a specialty background. A lot of suspense writers used to be lawyers or crime beat reporters. I didn't even know a cop when I started out. I finally figured out that I could visit prisons - I just had to be willing to make the phone calls.

I'm not the most detailed writer. I have a tendency to be more action-oriented vs. descriptive.

I think one of the appeals of suspense is to safely explore our innermost fears.

I still read romance, and I read suspense. I read them both. And part of it is, I like stories with strong characters, and I like stories where there's closure at the end. And I like stories where there's hope. That's a kind of empowerment. I think romance novels are very empowering, and I think sus

I still like the relationship part of any story. You don't want your character to figure everything out and then at the end of the day, go home and eat soup from a can by herself.

I loved ghost stories, creaky staircases, stormy nights. If it guaranteed nightmares I read it by flashlight, after midnight.

I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present.

I have a huge author crush on Stephen King. Have never met him. Would probably embarrass myself. But it would be worth it.

I don't know much about international policing and I would love to learn more. Especially in this day and age when the Internet is rapidly reducing borders and crime can happen on a larger scale than ever before. These things intrigue me.

Before I became a suspense novelist, I wrote romantic suspense as Alicia Scott.

All I've really ever done is write since I was 17, so I don't know anything about anything. For me to do a novel, I have to talk to people who know things. And what keeps me in suspense is that I am a crime aficionado.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

It is hard to feel individually responsible with respect to the invisible processes of a huge and distant government.

Our problem is not to find better values but to be faithful to those we profess.

Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.

If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.

I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive.

All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species.

The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.

Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.