Why I love chess and tennis - the volleying aspect, and the fact that your competitors' reactions and motivations and bluffs come into the game itself.

I don't think secrets are a bad thing. I think there's this idea that everything needs to be transparent in order for it to be free.

You find when you're writing a detective story that you're actually not trying to solve anything. You're trying to stop the reader from solving the puzzle.

There's something about fear and aesthetic that go hand in hand.

There’s a great scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974] that I’m obsessed with: Sally is being chased by Leatherface with a chainsaw... And she runs into thorn bushes. And she’s getting tangled up in it because she’s running fast... But Sally needs to move slowly in order to get through the bushes - she will get farther faster by going slowly because her hair and clothes won’t get tangled and caught. There’s something really beautiful about understanding that, while someone’s chasing you with a chainsaw, you have to move more slowly in order to get away.

People aren't doing whodunits anymore.

It is a little out of touch to presume that someone wants to follow your every observation and insight over the course of hundreds of pages without any sort of payoff. That's why writing isn't a one-way street. You have to give something back: an interesting plot, a surprise, a laugh, a moment of tenderness, a mystery for the reader to piece together.