If I'm writing and a chapter isn't coming, I just move ahead.

I grew up in a house full of women: my mother, grandmother, three sisters, and two female cats. And I still have the buzz of their conversations in my head. As an adult, I have more female friends than male ones: I just love the way that women talk.

Always expect the unexpected. Right around Thanksgiving, when the new Alex Cross will be out. It's called Four Blind Mice and it's a pretty amazing story about several murders inside the military.

The fact is that our kids aren't reading books - or frankly, much of anything lately. Schools are under funded, some schools even closing their libraries. Parents have to realize that it's their job, and not the school's job, to get kids into the habit of reading for fun.

The Story Of A Marriage' was initially a short story I wrote, and before that, it was a family story. It was a story that a relative of mine told me about herself in the '50s, and it was a story that no one else in my family believes, and it might not be true.

Honestly, I don't buy papers or the weeklies. I think when something messy does happen, you just need your closest friends and family all around you, and it's nothing to do with anyone else.

I wanted to be a doctor at some point, and I was always bringing home strays from school: people who were too poor to pay fees or have food. My parents never rebuked me or told me that they were hard-pressed, too.

It's unfair to the hard-core stay-at-home moms to pretend you're able to have an amazing body by chasing around your kids.