I won the parental lottery. Most of the kids I grew up with either came from really fractured homes, or really violent ones. I went home to a very traditional, good Irish Catholic family.

It's very simple. If you learn how to write well, to write with depth, cream will rise to the top. You'll get published. But, there is no secret.

That's the thing about being a victim; you start to think it'll happen to you on a regular basis. It's living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.

You've learned that every good lie is threaded with truth and every accepted truth leaks lies.

I held her, he wanted to say, and if I knew for certain that all it would take to hold her again would be to die, then I couldn't raise the gun to my head fast enough.

I found that I could write two kinds of short stories: I could write very absurd, kind of surrealistic, funny stories; or I could write very dark, realistic - hyper-realistic - stories. I was never happy with that, because I couldn't meld the two.

The best thing that can happen to people entering creative professions is the dwindling of all other possibilities.