They [my stories] evolve. If they're tightly constructed, it's because they're revised constantly as I move forward each day. That's where the structure inheres. It's all organic.

The very genetic determinism I posited in World's End as a way of shaking off my inherited demons is being proven in fact as we map out the human genome.

Alcohol had a lot to do with it, too, and mental instability. All writers are narcissistic, manic-depressive drug addicts and alcoholics, and I am no exception.

The professorial dictum has always been to write what you know, but I say write what you don't know and find something out. And it works.

I've always been a huge fan of theatre and performance. The idea of just the human voice and just this night. Live music is the same. They're doing it for you right now. It's an amazing thing. And if you perform a story properly, it can be a transporting, too.

I always listen to music while I'm working and I always read aloud to my wife. I love to read aloud to an audience because there's a cadence and a beat. There's a music to the language that's very important to me.

I go around with my books so much and I love to perform on stage, to remind everybody that the lights are off, the phones are off, and for this hour, it's going to be like your mother reading to you. We're going to remember why we love stories. I think that gets lost in over-intellectualizing.