If by reaction you mean critical reaction, I was confident that we were putting out a quality book [ Treachery]. So I was reasonably sure that we'd get positive notices.

And to all of you, what it really comes down to is: If you're buying a book with my name on it, I feel I owe it to you to have it be the best book that I can make it.

There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They're totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point.

As for jokes, I don't think it's necessarily that what I write is funny.

We're all of us dying . . . from the moment we're born

I knew if we could pull in the Stephen King fans, we'd have a ball game. The point at which I finally became confident of the audience interest was when I showed up at one of the Marvel midnight openings to launch the very first issue of Dark Tower.

If by reaction you mean critical reaction, I was confident that we were putting out a quality book [ Treachery]. So I was reasonably sure that we'd get positive notices.