I’ve always said to people, "I don’t care what you call me as long as the checks don’t bounce and the family gets fed." But I never saw myself that way. I just saw myself as a novelist.

I believe in evil, but all my life I've gone back and forth about whether or not there's an outside evil, whether or not there's a force in the world that really wants to destroy us, from the inside out, individually and collectively.

No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

It's how we see the world that keeps the darkness beyond at bay. Keeps it from pouring through and devouring us. I think all of us might know that, way down deep.

If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples. I'll love your face no matter what it looks like. Because it's yours.

People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.