Karin Slaughter

I have a few unusual fans, as you can imagine, so I try to protect the privacy of my home life.

I can clearly trace my passion for reading back to the Jonesboro, Georgia, library, where, for the first time in my life, I had access to what seemed like an unlimited supply of books.

Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.

Being a Southerner, I'm interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.

My dad believed in scaring us as we were growing up. Scaring the boys who wanted to date us more.

I've always been interested in violence, even as a teenager. I loved 'Helter Skelter' and books like that.

I think crime fiction is a great way to talk about social issues, whether 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or 'The Lovely Bones;' violence is a way to open up that information you want to get out to the reader.

I think that characters who are nice all the time and who you sympathize with can get really boring.

Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life.

I think a lot of people are curious about what makes people do what they do, and I guess my curiosity isn't hidden in any way.

I busted my chin open trying to be Evel Knievel on my bike. When it happened, you could see straight through to the bone, I thought my dad was going to pass out. It left a scar that I still have now.

It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task.

I am hard-pressed to find a successful writer who doesn't have a similar story to mine - transformation through the public library.

Reading develops cognitive skills. It trains our minds to think critically and to question what you are told. This is why dictators censor or ban books. It's why it was illegal to teach slaves to read. It's why girls in developing countries have acid thrown in their faces when they walk to school.

Reading is power. Reading is life.

As voters and taxpayers, we must demand that our local governments properly prioritize libraries. As citizens, we must invest in our library down the street so that the generations served by that library grow up to be adults who contribute not just to their local communities but to the world.

I love twins stories.

I think a lot of guys who are on the Internet a lot, they're kind of anesthetized to some of the violent language and all that because they see it all the time.

People don't just love mysteries. They are obsessed with them - especially the kind that are never definitively solved.

Crafting a piece of gripping, narrative true crime that engages the world is not that different from crafting a piece of crime fiction.

The most important lesson I have learned from spending years talking to law enforcement officers is that the vast majority of them really want to do a good job. They have a physical need to do a good job. And yet, we don't give them the resources that would help them.

Prosecutors and public defenders deserve to make a living wage.

My sister is dyslexic, and she's so smart, so intelligent in all of the ways that matter.

I think chalking up human behavior to evil lets us all off the hook too easily.

I write fifteen hours a day, stopping at Oprah-o'clock.

I'm going to name a name: Janet Evanovich. She writes the same book over and over, and I read every single one of them and eagerly anticipate them.

Men are more particular, and they're not going to grab something with a bodice-ripper cover on it.

Growing up in Georgia in the southeastern United States, I was always reading and always kept to myself. I never felt isolated, though; I just liked being alone.

I've always been drawn to dark stories. I enjoy reading Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, and Margaret Mitchell.

I love reading almost as much as I love writing.

Most of my books begin with a nap on my couch here, when I dream up characters and story lines, and then I write on my laptop in the recliner and handle the business side of email at my desk, which is sagging in the middle - maybe from so many words?

Oh, I'm completely OCD about neatness.

It was always my dream to write for a living.

I always wanted to be a writer. In the beginning, I thought I had to rewrite 'Gone with the Wind,' but eventually, I found my way and realized that wasn't me.

I grew up reading thrillers. Honestly, I was always drawn to the very detailed ones like Patricia Cornwell. I love details.

Women know how to scare other women.

Anyone who's been to high school with teenage girls knows how horrible girls can be.

We make assumptions: nurses should be nice, teachers should be good. But everyone has a dark side, some darker than others.

It seems like women are always told, 'It is not your time.'

I thought I had to write literature and add my name to the list of great Southern storytellers. Fortunately for me, no one wanted to read any of those stories. They got rejected by everyone. Sometimes, I would get a note saying they liked the writing, but the story simply didn't work.

I grew up in a small town in Georgia where nothing bad happened - it was like Mayberry.

Graphic novels let you take risks that just wouldn't fly in the conventional book form.

Visual storytelling is at once immediate and subversive.

Librarians have always stood up for writers and readers in every kind of community across this country.

There's a tendency among some male writers to make the women in their stories weak and needing of rescue so that their hero looks like a manly man.

Denise Mina is probably one of the most gifted writers out there, whether it's mystery or literary or whatever label you want to give it.

Jack Reacher is one of the sexiest characters in fiction.

For many children, the library represents their only access to books, reading, and the Internet outside of their home. If you think about how far behind a child would be without access to these fundamental tools - tools that are vital to successful employment later in life - it's a travesty.

Equal access to reading is fundamental to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.