-Do you think it's dirty money? -All money is dirty. If it were clean nobody would want it.

Mention the gothic, and many readers will probably picture gloomy castles and an assortment of sinister Victoriana. However, the truth is that the gothic genre has continued to flourish and evolve since the days of Bram Stoker, producing some of its most interesting and accomplished examples in the 20th century - in literature, film and beyond.

I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.

Time goes faster the more hollow it is. Lives with no meaning go straight past you, like trains that don’t stop at your station.

Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.

One mustn't dream of one's future; one must earn it.

I quarreled with every word, every phrase and expression, every image and letter as if they were the last I was ever going to write. I wrote and rewrote every line as if my life depended on it, and then rewrote it again.