Who has a right to tell me I have no gift, no talent, no passion ...' he murmured. 'Why do people say those things to you when youre young? Doesn't seem fair, does it?' 'No, darling, it's not fair,'she said. 'But the mystery is why you listen.

And my heart beat faster for the mountains of eastern Europe, finally, beat faster for the one hope that somewhere we might find in that primitive countryside the answer to why under God this suffering was allowed to exist - why under God it was allowed to begin, and how under God it might be ended. I had not the courage to end it, I knew, without that answer.

Ah, come now. I look like an angel, but I'm not. The old rules of nature encompass many creatures like me. We're beautiful like the diamond-backed snake, or the striped tiger, yet we're merciless killers

There may be writing groups where people meet but it's occasional. You really do it all at your own computer or your own typewriter by yourself.

A starving child is a frightful sight. A starving vampire, even worse.

When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is.

To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.