Pain can be endured and defeated only if it is embraced. Denied or feared, it grows in perception if not in reality. The best response to terror is righteous anger, confidence in ultimate justice, a refusal to be intimidated.

That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on.

I believe that I was a dog in a past life. That's the only thing that would explain why I like to snack on Purina Dog Chow.

I've got a long list of books I wish I'd never written-and I've kept them all out of print for the past 20 years.

A great deal of phenomenal experience has fostered in me a flexibility of the mind and imagination that some might call madness

Writing isn't a source of pain. It's psychic chemotherapy. It reduces your psychological tumors and relieves your pain.

Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.