Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

They walked back into the world together, wearing the gift that had been given them: just life. Pity was not love, Barbie reflected...but if you were a child, giving clothes to someone who was naked had to be a step in the right direction.

Humor is almost always anger with its make-up on.

The mystery of the universe is not time but size.

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

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.

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