Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery.

I believe these stories exist because we sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives: the parent who punches instead of kissing, the auto accident that takes a loved one, the cancer we one day discover living in our own bodies. If such terrible occurrences were acts of darkness, they might actually be easier to cope with. But instead of being dark, they have their own terrible brilliance. . . and none shine so bright as the acts of cruelty we sometimes perpetrate in our own families.

Small towns harbor small imaginations.

And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside.

Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in.

Don't let the door hitcha where the good Lord splitcha.

I like to end stories where the readers have a little room to run. They can resolve things as they like in their own mind.