Writing is a necessity and often a pleasure, but at the same time, it can be a great burden and a terrible struggle.

I try not to become too regular an addict of any one subculture.

I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram.

I've never related to the work geek at all-it sounds much more horrible than nerd. Like a freak biting a chicken's head off in a sideshow.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

Someday I would change my name to Shut Up and save everybody a lot of time.

I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.

What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary?

It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.

I can't bear the silent ringing in my skull.

I like Nine Inch Nails, and I like hip-hop.

Eventually, you have to stop picking a fight with your true nature and decide to seek the joy that underlies it all.

When we consider the promises of Christ, risking everything we are and everything we have for His sake is no longer a matter of sacrifice. It's just common sense.

When you get questions that annoy you the art is answering them differently. If you're bored with it, then everyone will be bored with it.

The pickpocket is usually very well dressed and of prepossessing appearance.

I got beat up by the comic-book kids when I was younger! They were cooler than me. Talk about levels of geekdom, I was a couple rungs below the kids who read comic books. Yeah. Not so cool, man.

There's a lot of people out there that's starting to sound like me so I guess I'm doing something right.

...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.

Love emerges at the point of a lacking word, and one offers one's being to fill the lack.

I knew he would never play for Wales ... he's tone deaf.