Affection is one of the most neglected words in the English language, that people throw the word love around like confetti when they mean affection.

There are no taboos. Every topic is open, however shocking. It is the way that the topics are handled that's important, and that applies whether it is a 15-year-old who is reading your book or someone who is 55.

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.

I'm not a reader of young adult fiction for the simple reason that these novelists are writing for adolescents, so they are not writing for me.

A new sickness invaded Jerry, the sickness of knowing what he had become, another animal, another beast, another violent person in a violent world, inflicting damage, not disturbing the universe but damaging it.

We often think that tragedies happen because of great earthquakes in people's lives. I think they sometimes occur because of small things that become obsessive to a particular person.

You hope that people read your book and say "Yes, this is the way it is or could be." But then you have no way of knowing until the reader reads the book. Actually, the critical response doesn't worry me. I've had very few reviews that have upset me.