I am an unwilling devil. I cry like some vagrant child. I want to go home.

How pathetic it is to describe these things which can't truly be described.

Obsession led me to write. It's been that way with every book I've ever written. I become completely consumed by a theme, by characters, by a desire to meet a challenge.

Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!

I think that we are supernatural. We are unique. We're the only animals in the universe that we know of that actually have self-consciousness, a sense of time and our own mortality.

In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume.

First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success.