I have always felt a little bit uncomfortable with question [why I'm write these stories]. It's not a question that you would ask a guy that writes detective stories or the guy that writes mystery stories, or westerns, or whatever. But it is asked of the writer of horror stories because it seems that there is something nasty about our love for horror stories, or boogies, ghosts and goblins, demons and devils.

Research can only present data about the past. No one seriously believes that people's answers to hypothetical questions about the future accurately represent their future behaviour; they merely represent a current attitude, which may or may not be translated into future behaviour.

And I guess you judge how well you're doing by how well you sleep at night... and what your dreams are like.

I can't see the future, but it's grim. The depletion of resources - we're living in this dine-and-dash economy.

For," I said, "a murdered man or woman dies not in God's time, but in Man's. He... or she... is cut short before he... or she... can atone for sin, and so all errors must be forgiven. When you think of it that way, all murderers are a gateway for heaven.

The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.

I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.