...my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves.

As always, the blessed relief of starting, a feeling that was like falling into a hole filled with bright light. As always, the glum knowledge that he would not write as well as he wanted to write. As always the terror of not being able to finish, of accelerating into a brick wall. As always, the marvelous joyful nervy feeling of journey begun.

Without story books is like a person with no soul.

The battle between good and evil is endlessly fascinating because we are participants every day.

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.

My feeling of the whole genre, of the terror tale, is this: The best thing that you can do for the readers in this field is to terrify them. It is something that is intellectual, it happens in your mind.

Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness.