John Searles

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

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

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

“I think I'm more sympathetic to writers, to the work and the struggle and the craft of it, than when I was in graduate school at NYU and was very judgmental.”

“I don't write to a genre.”

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

“A lot of people are afraid of dolls - everybody remembers 'Chucky.'”

“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.”

“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.”

“My writing is sort of 'Sidney Sheldon meets Anne Tyler.'”

“My dad was a cross-country truck driver.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I've gone to readings to see authors after meeting them on Twitter. And while there, I've found myself sitting next to still more writers who I met on Twitter, too.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“I always wanted to be a writer.”

“Everyone has a ghost story, or at least that's how it has always seemed to me.”