...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

fiction is the great lie that tells the truth

I do not write about nice people. I am not nice people.

Behind the story I tell is the one I don't...Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you hear.

The bottom line is I'm writing to save the dead. I'm writing to save the people I have lost, some of whose bodies are still walking around.