One has to adopt a sort of Zen calm, in which you know you wrote the best book that you could at the time.

The file clanked against me, my stupid idea nobody would have gotten had I ever done it. You even wouldn't have gotten it, Ed, I thought, watching her go. It's why we broke up, so here it is. Ed, how could you?

The idea that the curtain rises on what is often more or less a happy scene, and it will fall just a few hours later, and everyone will be dead or have gone mad... I find that kind of narrative very appealing.

Do the scary thing first, and get scared later.

This is my knife. It is very sharp and very eager to hurt you.

Oftentimes. when people are miserable, they will want to make other people miserable, too. But it never helps.

People who say money doesn’t matter are like people who say cake doesn’t matter—it’s probably because they’ve already had a few slices.