John Searles Quotes

No one in my family had ever even gone to college.

People are often surprised that I am so upbeat. I'm always hearing, 'You're so light and funny, and your books are so dark and twisted.' There's a dichotomy. I like books that are dark and creepy. I don't control it - it's just what I gravitate toward.

What is prayer but meditation? What is a demon but a fear that lives inside us, one we cannot easily conquer on our own?

When I first came to New York, I would scream like a girl and run to the other side of the street if there was a pigeon. Now I can face off with a pigeon.

What I will say is this: each of us is born into this life with a light inside of us. Some, like yours, burn brighter than others. You don't see that yet, but I do. What's most important is to never let that light go out, because when you do, it means you've lost yourself to the darkness. It means you've lost your hope. And hope is what makes this world a beautiful place. Do you understand what I am trying to say?

You know what can make a person possessed, Sylvie? It's not Satan or Lucifer or any of that nonsense. Do you know what it is? . . . Love and hate. Greed. Revenge. Pride. Those things...

My goal is to write books that are quality books with very real characters and a gripping plot.

That's what belief does, Sylvie. Whether something is true or not is beside the point.

I don't write to a genre.

There are times when it's easier to fool yourself than swallow some jagged piece of reality.

At the age of 70-something, Helen Gurley Brown was still a woman who knew how to get men to look at her.

Each of us is born into this life with a light inside us... What's most important is to never let that light go out, because when you do, it means you've lost yourself to darkness. It means you've lost hope. And hope is what makes this world a beautiful place.

I grew up in a two-bedroom house with my grandfather, my mom and dad and four kids. I slept on the couch or on the floor, and I always wanted to have my own space.

I usually don't write at night, but there are times where I wake up at 3 in the morning and write all night.

Just because people are related doesn't always make the difference it should.

My first day as an intern in the books department at 'Cosmopolitan' also happened to be the day the O.J. Simpson verdict was announced.

My personality has two sides: a very social side and a reclusive side. I love writing fiction, although I can't imagine ever being locked up in a room writing all the time.

All my friends are female, I've edited for a magazine for young girls for 15 years, I relate to women, and I'm very, very close to my younger sister.

I always joke deep down I'm really a teenage girl on the inside.

Buying an apartment in New York was beyond my wildest dreams. I had to scrape together every cent to buy it. And I'm so happy I did.

I think about those words a lot, and I think about their spirits too. If you believe in those sorts of things. I do and I don't believe. But mostly - mostly, mostly - I do.

I love being able to be a writer. That's what I moved to New York to be.

I stayed at 'Cosmo' well beyond my internship, moving up the ranks over some 15 years to become books editor, then brand director, then editor-at-large - editing everything from an excerpt of Gore Vidal's memoir to writing some of those juicy cover lines myself.

Gone are the days when a publisher could take out an ad, count on a few reviews, and have an author do a couple of signings. Nowadays, readers want to feel a connection with an author.