There's an old saying about truth setting you free. Don't buy it. Sometimes the truth slams the cell door shut and throws a thousand bolts.

Sarcasm doesn't appear to work on him. If that's true, I'm in trouble: It's my normal mode of communication.

To hold on, you have to find something you’re willing to die for.

Sci-Fi is the genre that explored both possibilities: the end of our existential crisis and the end of our existence. My novel, The 5th Wave, explores the latter scenario, because, frankly, I believe it represents the likeliest outcome of an extraterrestrial encounter. In short, if they're out there, we better hope they never find us.

But monsters, I now know, come in all shapes and sizes, and only their appetite for human flesh defines them.

So often the monsters that crowd our minds are nothing more than the strange and thoroughly alien progeny of our own fearful fantasies.

In case you're an alien and you're reading this: BITE ME.