Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.

When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.

If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.

When you're writing for the screen you're really thinking all the time of what you have to do to make sure that they have the information that they need, that the emotional thread is not snapped, that the story moves at the right speed, to keep the audience hopefully sitting on the edge of their seats or else weeping or laughing.

I've never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones.

Very often, people who actually pick up a book of mine for the first time are kind of surprised. And I get these letters saying, well, who knew that you were good, you know?

That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.