I write in the mornings, in the bright daylight. But I get most of my good ideas after the sun has gone down and the dark is on the land.

A person’s never too old for stories. Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them. - Roland Deschain

You know how it's going to end, but instead of spoiling things, that somehow increases your fascination. It's like watching a kid run his electric train faster and faster and waiting for it to derail on one of the curves.

Until that afternoon in October four years ago, I hadn't known dogs could scream.

People can be stunningly unobservant.

Only library books speak with such wordless eloquence of the power good stories hold over us.

Terrifying. . . . A Dark Matter is populated with vivid, sympathetic characters, and driven by terrors both human and supernatural. It's the kind of book that's impossible to put down once it has been picked up. It kept me reading far into the night. Straub builds otherworldly terror without ever losing touch with his attractive cast of youngsters, who age beautifully. Put this one high on your list.