And then it was, that grief and pain made themselves known to me as never before. Note this, because I knew the full absurdity of Fate and Fortune and Nature more truly than a human can bear to know it. And perhaps the description of this, brief as it is, may give consolation to another. The worst takes its time to come, and then to pass. The truth is, you cannot prepare anyone for this, nor convey an understanding of it through language. It must be known. And this I would wish on no one in the world.

I tell you, we would be hard put to determine what is more evil -- religion or the pure idea. The intervention of the supernatural or the elegant abstract solution! Both have bathed this earth in suffering; both have brought the human race literally and figuratively to its knees.

The whole theme of Interview with the Vampire was Louis's quest for meaning in a godless world. He searched to find the oldest existing immortal simply to ask, What is the meaning of what we are?

The only power that exists is inside ourselves.

There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.

Stephen King in many respects is a wonderful writer. He has made a contribution. People in the future will be able to pick up Stephen King's books and learn a lot about who we were by reading those books.

I don't know why one author writes westerns while another writes detective novels. You don't know why. You go where the intensity is. I feel most comfortable writing about monsters. It's possible that I feel like a monster myself. Or maybe it's because we all have a monster inside of us, a vampire, a ghost, a witch or a werewolf. You do it because it works and it feels really right and authentic.