"The first duty of a novelist is to entertain. If you don't entertain, then all the deeper stuff is lost."

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

"Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn't carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots …"

"When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'One word at a time,' and the answer is always true."

"There are no bad ideas. Only bad executions."