When I was little, I went to a Catholic school and was required to go to church every morning and with my parents on Sundays, so I spent a lot of time sitting on a wooden pew. Angels are sort of a relief. If you're looking around, the other imagery is so dark and heavy. Looking at the beautifully rendered pictures of angels was more uplifting.

I think angels definitely offer all the imaginative possibilities that vampires do, and I think they've actually been popular in Western culture for longer than vampires have been. I hope they become a part of the culture again in a new way.

We create an image of happiness and success and then we are beholden to it. We tell ourselves stories and sometimes these stories become so strong as to imprison us. Breaking free from our personal fortresses is a long, hard journey, but ultimately what allows one to grow.

The most obvious difference between writing novels and memoirs is that my memoirs are true stories, and explore certain experiences I've lived, and thus operate within the boundaries of memory and fact.

Writing grew out of the pleasure of escape. My novels are very much outside of my personal experience. That is why I love writing fiction. It allows me to leave my existence and inhabit other lives.

One thing that I don't ever want to do is write something I don't love.

Since the Middle Ages, people have been writing about angels. Angelology was actually at one point a scholastic discipline.