God was, to me, a lovely dream, a brave make-believe daddy who provided comforting answers to those who couldn't bear the prevailing evidence.

“All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick up a work of fiction.”

“There's something incredibly liberating about a holiday that encourages children to take candy from strangers”

“I have a hard time defending the production of candy, given that it is basically crack for children and makes them dependent in unwholesome ways.”

Misery loves another idiot with a jukebox where his soul should be.

“It is in these moments of tender and ridiculous nostalgia that I know something inside me is still broken.”

Nothing on Earth is so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night.

“We need books because we are all, in the private kingdoms of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend.”