If I saw something once that I can't explain, that doesn't make them real. And if a trick of the dark gave me a chill, that doesn't make them real. And if a madman says what's at the core of us all is a senseless, flapping quiver of black shade, that's just one more reason not to believe.

The act of reading is so intimate that readers are unpredictable.

He has one of those heads people think about cutting off." “Yes. He does.

Writing is an art but also a craft, which means it's a job. I don't teach. This is how the groceries get on the table. You sometimes make creative sacrifices to get the job done. All that said, I'm looking forward to getting out of the two-book-a-year schedule I'm on and to getting some self-indulgence going.

I might be at a point where I don't want to go with a genre convention but I have to produce some pages. It's hard work. And it requires you learn certain skills.

There is very little sense that anybody really knows what works or why. But that's not a shock. And I don't think market research would solve that.

Once we understand how they think, we can predict their behaviour. And once we predict it well, we can manipulate it. That is diplomacy.