When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels.

I wanted to start over completely, to begin again as new people with nothing of the past left over. I wanted to run away from who we had been seen to be, who we had been... It's the first thing I think of when trouble comes - the geographic solution. Change your name, leave town, disappear, make yourself over. What hides behind that impulse is the conviction that the life you have lived, the person you are, is valueless, better off abandoned, that running away is easier than trying to change things, that change itself is not possible.

That was what gospel was meant to do - make you hate and love yourself at the same time, make you ashamed and glorified.

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

Every kid I meet who's a reader has got something like that, their fantasy world. And science fiction is the best, especially for girls because it's the one place where you can do the forbidden.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.