It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recogniz….

My mother is an office manager, my father a professor of economics and financial planner..

Ive tried to avoid labels, but they always find you..

My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was allowed to read whatever I wanted..

Why bother? I was right all along: the second you make yourself vulnerable to someone, they start drawing blood..

In the Netherlands I read the first chapter of Exquisite Corpse to an audience that laughed in all the places I thought were funny - an experience I'….

There are people who must spend huge amounts of time composing these online diatribes against me, all about how disgusting and terrible I am and how ….

My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me, because I ….

I certainly wanted to write a book that was honest about New Orleans without explaining it to death, so much so that the first draft contained refere….

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job..

When you have too much faith in something, it's bound to hurt you. Too much faith in anything will suck you dry. In this way, all the world is a vamp….

Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness..

They discovered that even in the face of pain that seems unbearable, even in the face of pain that wrings the last drop of blood out of your heart an….

You can only maintain an immensely gothic attitude for so long before either killing yourself or beginning to feel like a poser..

I believe in whatever gets you throught the night. [...] Night is the hardest time to be alive. For me, anyway. It lasts so long, and four A.M.knows ….

Never relinquish your terrors. That's when they catch you..

Delete nothing. Move nothing. Change nothing. Learn everything..

And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it..

If you find yourself imitating another writer, that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you are a young or a new writer. However, you shoul….

Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favorites. It's a good way to learn, as long as you move on from it and don't publish ….

Sometimes we gotta be brave even when we're scared. We gotta not let being scared keep us from thinkin' straight. That's all brave is, boy, when you ….