There were shadows galore in the dim light, but there was one shadow that did not correspond to any object in the room. It lurked next to the fireplace, a formless, undulating darkness.

Real life ... it was an ambiguous world, where actions sometimes had no meaning, where chaos reigned and no one was allowed to see the big picture, only their small portion of it.

Horror writers can write about everything in the real world that a mainstream novelist can--plus the supernatural, which is the most fertile field for metaphor imaginable.

Names have power. In certain cultures, just speaking a man's name gives you mastery over him.

The Revelation was my master's project, and after I finished it, I thought I'd send it off to a publisher and within a year or so be a rich and famous writer. Two years later I finally sold it. For a whopping $4,000. A year after that, it finally came out. Which explains why there are all those terrible jobs on my resume!

I write horror because I enjoy it. I'm endlessly fascinated by the supernatural, by death, by darkness. And, to be honest, I don't have much choice. This is the way my mind works.

There’s always been a need for horror fiction, though - ghost stories have been a staple of every human society since the beginning of recorded literature - and while commercially the field may have its ups and downs, it will never go away. Hell, look at the Bible: gods, devils, ghosts, witches, giants, resurrections. That’s one big horror story. And it’s the most popular book on the planet.