I definitely care about how the concept of New York punk was constructed, and why it mattered. But I wasn't gonna do that. Partly because I'm not a great journalist...

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.

as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive

I decided to find out how people at school might react if one of the students never came back.

The catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented - and we often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable.

Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first.

Children are never too tender to be whipped. Like tough beefsteaks, the more you beat them, the more tender they become.

You and I must not complain if our plans break down if we have done our part. That probably means that the plans of One who knows more than we do have succeeded.

Fine. Everybody wears seatbelts. No radio. No distractions.” Ben shot Hi a stern look. “No running commentary.” “Your loss,” Hi said. “To the pimp ride!

If someone says that he can think or talk about quantum physics without becoming dizzy, that shows only that he has not understood anything whatever about it.

If you look at it that way, then you start thinking about the basic things, which are jobs not jails, and education not incarceration.

I've never had any illusions about being a lead actor in films, because lead actors have to be of a certain kind.