Lyrics paved my teenage route to loving words. I take those passionate mini-stories with me everywhere.

Katie began to draw in the secrecy of her room, in anger at first, using her mother’s pencils and whatever paper she could find. Sometimes, she had to steal from Nader’s study to replenish her...

Writing is a solitary existence, especially if you forget to chat to your friends – sorry, I meant characters.

Heads swivel. Whispers erupt. As Kalist returns to his desk, bone cane by his side, he indulges, briefly, in horse practice, neighing lightly as he scrolls through a few mental images of busty secretary, Geiger,...

When I see the confident light in his eye cloud over, the animal in the corner of mine wakes up.

We all have different voices for different occasions. I just turn those voices into characters and put them in my books.

Somewhere, beyond blackness, some tyrant host swaps breathing for airlessness to test me. I had no concept of myself, no link to the things I knew. It is hard to explain the lack of anything...

Today’s controversy is tomorrow’s sea change.

One man’s fight is another man’s freedom.

Obelmäker is eating at his desk, a habit both Baumauer and Pissec find repulsive.

People who love reading get an instantly warm feeling in their bellies when they hear others describe getting comfortable with a good book.

I like to play around with my nightmares. Whenever I have a bad dream – something strange and unnerving – I write it down, sometimes in the middle of the night when everyone around me...

I used to love lulling, running water – a sound so infrequent in cityscapes. Its loss always made me feel lonely when I lived amongst concrete.

First time I ever put pen to paper, I had one goal – to build something no one had ever thought of before.

Without pride, man becomes a parasite – and there are already too many parasites.

Each day of the week, Kalist indulges himself in a different, secret ritual. On Mondays, he wears cologne. On Tuesdays, he eats meat for lunch. On Wednesdays, he places a bet after work. On Thursdays,...

To Katie, it was as lonely and secret as any building could be; its size and grandeur meant less to her. She didn’t know or care when the place had been built or by whom,...

Most of the people I worked with in my old job were pretty cool. We used to go out drinking after lights out and the less pleasant members of staff would be the topic of...

Please, never tell me what ‘horror erotica’ is. Real #art is being lost in a bizarre swamp of over-processed, sexually exploitative garbage.

You have to know your own mind inside out before you can know the minds of others.

Bride of Beimerstetten, bride of Beimerstetten, bride of Beimerstetten, naked bride of Beimerstetten,” and he imagines a procession of proud military men blowing trumpets as they stomp through a bomb-devastated town to the tune of...

I’ve always thought that the best moments can come from the worst times.

To prepare to write, I don’t surround myself with books. I surround myself with feelings.

Time is not an enemy as such, but a missing person, sending cryptic postcards from the past.

It was all changing. All of it. And it was horrible and it was lovely.

Youngsters deserve no opinions.

I’m warning you because you’re young and vulnerable. He’s a dirty, lying, conniving piece of shit and he’s dangerous.” Gottfried Baumauer.

I’m going to fight, in my own way, until there’s nothing left of me to stuff inside the barrel and ignite.

I do not do free e-books. I occasionally like to eat that thing you people call “food”.

Truth starts with a sense.

The best restaurants are always down the side streets.

To Kalist, Baumauer’s just a timber bridge in need of a good hot fire.

Kalist is in his office with the door shut, secretly adding the final touches to his new Brichacek doll; she’s got rosy, plaster cheeks and his nose hairs for pubes, although he thinks he might...

Occasionally, a flicker of curiosity would urge the pilots to turn their heads and glance out past the sharp metallic casing of their jets to gaze at the distant, inland desert. They could barely recognise...

The fear of silence is a fear everyone should overcome.

My characters don’t always know more than the reader does, because my readers get the best seat in Paper House.

Prayer is better than pills.

Baumauer wants a life in which he cannot be belittled, judged or controlled by worse men.

Everything I write has an unsettling edge.

When people say, ‘you’re so young to be a writer,’ I always reply, ‘I started young because I’ve got a lot to write.

At first, I didn’t understand. Understanding came very slowly.

Two hours later and I had to fork out for her taxi home. Bitch didn’t even give me her number. I wasn’t properly pissed because I’d controlled my urge to drink heavily so I could...

He had become the sky around the sun – alive, but not really there.

Secrets are dangerous.” Gottfried Baumauer.

My best writing surfaces out of the need to rebel, the desire to end emotional chaos and the importance I place on embracing that independent streak inside us all that makes us want to break...

People love books because they’re searching for answers to deep, unconscious questions – and books get as close as it’s possible to get.

In the dark, neglected gutter running the length of a nearby secluded side street lies a small, lifeless bird. This is the blackcap – the unaccustomed northern nightingale – a creature with a charcoal greyness...

Motivation is my problem: I’m almost too motivated. I lie awake thinking how Kris would dress for the occasion or why Benjamin would be upset in the field or how the hell Brianna will manage...

Shame comes in different doses.

Kalist likes to listen to the collective voices swell as more individuals in his colony arrive.