So, whenever I'm writing, I'm writing in the presence of all the other books I've read and I think we all are.

Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody.

Writers who pretend that everything they're doing is completely new are full of it.

There's an outline for each of the books that I adhere to pretty closely, but I'm not averse to taking it in a new direction, as long as I can get it back to where I need it to go.

I'm a workmanlike writer. I show up every day and treat it like a job. The old rule that writing is like any other job, the first rule is that you must show up. I'm at the keyboard from 9 to 4 every day.

And I had always liked vampire stories because they are great material that can be refashioned in lots of ways.

Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.