I really believe hatred is not a primal emotion, in that you can't find it in nature. It's basically some kind of distortion of fear.

People usually don't allow you to cut off their tongue.

To what extent does anybody control his destiny? Life is very much like falling of the edge of a cliff. You have complete freedom to make all the choices you want to take on your way down. My characters choose to yearn and not lose hope even when the odds are completely against them. It doesn't make the landing at the end of that fall any less painful but, somehow, it helps them keep a little dignity their bone broken body.

It's kind of a reflex for me to ignore my own wishes and think about other people first.

It's funny, but I think my stories - the good ones - they're much smarter than I am.

It took a lot to understand that the interest in both writing a story and reading it is not in the objective dangers someone takes. You don't have to fight snakes or wake up in a strange apartment to have a story; it's about what goes on inside your mind and soul.

Maybe in the general scheme of things he couldn't find any meaning in life, but on a smaller scale it was okay. Not always, but a lot of the time.