Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel.

The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable - some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control.

Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.

People are either attracted to the unseemly or disapproving of it, or both; yet we try to sound superior to the unseemly by pretending to be amused by it or indifferent to it.

It is amazing to me, now, how such wild imaginings and philosophies - inspired by a night charged with frights and calamities - made such perfectly good sense to Owen Meany and me, but good friends are nothing to each other if they are not supportive.

Imagining something is better than remembering something.

Writing is hard. I learned how to work hard from wrestling, not English courses.