We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.

The only time "early bloomer" has ever been applied to me is vis-a-vis my premature apprehension of the deep dread-of-existence thing. In all other cases, I plod and tromp along. My knuckles? Well dragged.

Pain could be killed. Sadness could not, but the drugs did shut its mouth for a time.

I write the books that I'm compelled to and I definitely learn things about the world when I write them, and I hope that other people get something out of them, enjoy them, see the world differently when they're done.

I think each book has its own way of accommodating my concerns, whether it's about race, America, technology, the city.

I'm an African-American writer, I'm a lazy writer, I'm a writer who likes to watch The Wire, I'm a writer who likes to eat a lot of steak.

It had been a humdrum couple of days, reaffirming his belief in reincarnation: everything was so boring that this could not be the first time he'd experienced it.