Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.

If you're going into a very dark place, then you should take a bright light, and shine it on everything. If you don't want to see, why in God's name would you dare the dark at all?

Friends don’t spy; true friendship is about privacy, too.

Everybody wants to psychoanalyze horror. They don't want to psychoanalyze a book like Gay Talese's "Sex with Your Neighbor" [sic] or something like that. It's pretty much accepted that Americans should be interested in who they're diddling and how they're doing it.

There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.

Practice is invaluable... honesty is indispensable.