The thing that most people didn't understand, if they weren't in his line if work, was that a rape victim and a victim of a fatal accident were both gone forever. The difference was that the rape victim still had to go through the motions of being alive.

Why are you doing this to yourself? When something bad happens, why do you have to pick at it until it bleeds all over again?

You need to learn to write on demand, and to get critiqued without flinching. When someone can rip your work to shreds without it feeling as though your arm has been hacked off, you're ready to send your novel off to an agent.

People have to experience things that terrify them. If they don't, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?

Anger, though, is too fierce a flame to last for long, and when it burned out, I was left numb and wondering.

I had absolutely no trauma in my childhood. If anyone ever assumed that my books were autobiographical, they'd be sorely disappointed, because none of these things happened to me.

There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.