My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.

All at once it hit him: this was power too, just as surely as smashing your fist into someone’s face, just as surely as putting a hammer through someone’s skull. The power to make another person crazy with pleasure instead of fear and pain, to have every cell in another person’s body at your thrall.

I certainly wanted to write a book that was honest about New Orleans without explaining it to death, so much so that the first draft contained references absolutely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't lived here for several years.

Maybe they did what they had to do to live, and tried to get a little love and have a little fun before the darkness took them.

It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.

And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it.

Horror is the badge of humanity, worn proudly, self-righteously, and often falsely.