Seven, Richie thought. That's the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That's the way it's supposed to be.

the only mortal sin is giving up.

...book-buyers aren't attracted, by and large, by the literary merits of a novel: book-buyers want a good story...something that will first fascinate them, then pull them in and keep them turning the pages.

I have grown into a Bestsellasaurus Rex - a big, stumbling book-beast that is loved when it shits money and hated when it tramples houses... I started out as a storyteller; along the way I became an economic force.

Most gothics are overplotted novels whose success or failure hinges on the author's ability to make you believe in the characters and partake of the mood.

It would perhaps not be amiss to point out that he had always tried to be a good dog. He had tried to do all the things his MAN and his WOMAN, and most of all his BOY, had asked or expected of him. He would have died for them, if that had been required. He had never wanted to kill anybody. He had been struck by something, possibly destiny, or fate, or only a degenerative nerve disease called rabies. Free will was not a factor.

And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings.