I don't think I will write anything that could be even remotely considered a genre novel from this point on. I think I've graduated.

I cleaned up. I quit drinking, I quit doing drugs, I quit stealing, I quit breaking into houses, I tried to quit being a bad human being. I developed a conscience later in life than many. I call it the lost-time-regained dynamic.

The truth of the matter is, you lose a parent to murder when you're 10 years old, and in fact at the time of the murder you hate your lost parent, my mother in my case.

My guys are morally weak, and they reach toward a tenuous knowledge of self-sacrifice, and sometimes it's too late. I find that moving. It's not a life I'd want to live. But, then, I'm not completely my books.

I don't think I came out of anybody. I think I developed out of the influences I described in My Dark Places. American history, L.A. of the 1950s. I'm comfortable with that.

There's none with me, although you've seen me before - I'm outrageous.

I wanted things. Whatever it cost and whatever it took, I would do it. And that's it.