The first time my mom read my very first book, she was like, 'I'm not gonna belabor this. It's not a big deal. But I have to ask the question: Is everything okay?'

I watched 'Psycho' a million times.

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

I assumed that 'Gone Girl' would do incrementally better than 'Dark Places,' and that would be great. So the fact that it did more than that was kind of an incredibly pleasant surprise.

The newspaper industry was built on the penny dreadfuls.

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.