Everyone's in their own personal coma.

Rant would tell people: 'You're a different human being to everybody you meet.

Ultimately, everyone is acting out of what they feel is the best choice. In a way, they're all trying to improve the world. And I think that those basic choices make the world a better place.

Everyone has something wrong. And for a while, her heart just sort of flat lined.

No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.

What I'm always trying to do with every book is to recreate the effect of the stories we heard as children in front of campfires and fireplaces - the ghost stories that engaged us.

These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead.