In high school I was the dog, always, and I never have felt comfortable or right in my body, and part of my whole exhibitionist thing has probably been a way of testing to see whether or not I really was this repulsive creature that I felt like for so long.

I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.

Why bother? I was right all along: the second you make yourself vulnerable to someone, they start drawing blood.

When you have too much faith in something, it's bound to hurt you. Too much faith in anything will suck you dry. In this way, all the world is a vampire.

Delete nothing. Move nothing. Change nothing. Learn everything.

You hold onto what you have; you do not give it up easily, even when you know it is poisoning you.

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.