A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.

New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example.

Memory is the most malicious cutter of all, preserving, recasting, panning in slow motion across the awful bits so that we retain every detail.

You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.

These days I find myself wanting to avoid being pigeon-holed, ghettoized, held in a different category than other authors. And when people ask me if I'm a black writer, or just a writer who happens to be black, I tend to say that it's either a dumb question or a question which happens to be dumb.

There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to be as near to hell as they can.

Most people say, "Show, don't tell," but I stand by Show and Tell, because when writers put their work out into the world, they're like kids bringing their broken unicorns and chewed-up teddy bears into class in the sad hope that someone else will love them as much as they do.