I have a grim outlook on the world, and in particular on humanity. Spent years denying it, but I am very misanthropic. And I live alone on a mountain for a reason.

She has that quality, does the Hudson, as I imagine all great rivers do: the deep, abiding sense that those activities what take place on shore among human beings are of the moment, passing, and aren't the stories by way of which the greater tale of this planet will, in the end, be told.

I, like most of my friends, couldn't believe I bought a mountain called Misery Mountain, because it was so appropriate.

I'm a fairly ascetic person. And I do most of my writing at night. You don't get distracted, your brain goes into what you are writing about, into the world you're writing about, rather than into the world you're in.

People are disturbed enough by serial killers, but the whole notion of female violence, particularly maternal violence - the idea of mothers who kill - really unnerves people.

I wanted nothing less than to be a fiction writer when I was a kid. If you had told me I would be an artist or novelist when I grew up, I would have laughed in your face

It is the greatest truth of our age: Information is not knowledge.