Your ideal possession candidate's a thirteen-year-old recently orphaned schizophrenic girl three days away from her period on her way to see the shrink with whom she's romantically besotted.

Only meaning can make a difference and we all know there's no meaning. All stories express a desire for meaning, not meaning itself. Therefore any difference knowing the story makes is a delusion.

The first horror is there's horror. The second is you accommodate it.

The message is clear: By all means become an abomination -- but only while unhinged by grief or wrath.

I don’t know where the universe came from or what happens to creatures when they die. I don’t know if the whole thing’s an unravelling accident or an inscrutable design. I don’t know how one should live—but I know that one should live, if one can possibly bear it.

Literature is humanity's broad-minded alter-ego, with room in its heart for monsters, even for you. It's humanity without the judgement.

That's what happens when you keep a secret from someone you love: you start to hate them for allowing you to prove your own willingness to deceive them.