Where I live, there is a group of fans who take me out to tea every year to pick my brains about what's coming up.

You won't have a story unless you have conflict, which means if there's no conflict in a situation, people look for a way to make some.

The only thing I knew about novels from a technical point of view was that they should have conflict.

Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.

I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read - they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting.

Me and my family are straight. I am blessed. I am alive, man, and I am healthy, and that is the only thing that matters. Me and my family, everybody else, it really doesn't matter because why do you care about somebody talking negative about you if they don't know you?

It's a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.

There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.