Advice to a new writer: There are no rules in this profession. Do what is good for you. Read books and watch films that stimulate your writing. In your writing, go where the pain is; go where the pleasure is; go where the excitement is. Believe in your own original approach, voice, characters, story. Ignore critics. Have nerve. Be stubborn.

The world doesn't need any more mediocrity or hedged bets.

I am in love with you', I responded. He laughed the most beguiling and gentle laugh. 'Of course you are,' he replied. 'I understand perfectly because I'm in love with myself. The fact that I'm not transfixed in front of the nearest mirror takes a great deal of self-control.' It was my turn to laugh.

I congratulate myself on not having arrived into the world until the present time. This age suits my taste.

You know nothing... And suppose the vampire who made you knew nothing, and the vampire who made that vampire knew nothing, and the vampire before him knew nothing, and so it goes back and back, nothing proceeding from nothing, until there is nothing! And we must live with the knowledge that there is no knowledge.

None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.

My heart right now is totally connected to a book called The Servant of the Bones, which is not in any way connected with vampires or witches. It's about a new hero, a ghost, who really doesn't particularly like the job that he's been given. I'm in love with this hero and in love with his dilemma.