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.

I'm your nightmare. Did you think you were done with nightmares, now you've become one?

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.

Ive tried to avoid labels, but they always find you.

If you want something, you don't wait for the world to deal it out for you. You take it.

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.

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.