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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I lose it when I can’t write. I feel sad and confused and fucked off.

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.

Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind.

I’m much more than a writer – I’m someone who puts different words together in an interesting way.

All the best writers take risks, offend people often and say fuck you to the critics.

So much of what we read nowadays is there one moment and gone the next. When you read something good, cherish it.

Nader refused to bring her the feathery dream catcher – her asabikeshiinh – with its willow-web and invisible ‘lady spider’ apparently weaving her spells – an object Bea insisted always hung above her in bed.

Obelmäker always suspected Kalist of being a driven man with a determined selfishness that verged on sociopathic, but he actually appears to be suffering for once, in a humane way, like one who has been...

Every time I so much as blink you get an erection.

Disorder, disobedience & rule breaking are features of all my stories.

Ever been expecting guests for a dinner party & had to clear up a massive LEGO space-station before they arrived? (Who needs kids to play?!)

I need a new trick if I am to walk without legs, see without eyes or speak without words.

I have a very addictive personality. If it isn’t women, it’s money. If it isn’t money, it’s speeding. And if it isn’t speeding, it’s women. I also like expensive video consoles where I can punch,...

We are all the sum of a million moments in our lives.

die Schwachen ein,” – the vulnerable one – after he cried like a child when he sliced two, thin strips of skin off his own index finger using a cheese grater (accidentally) one night when...

Someone asked me, ‘How do you write a book?’ I said, ‘I live with a pen in one hand.

He’s got things to do, places to be, realities to believe in. He can feel the phone he’s been told to keep switched off in this communication-free zone vibrating in his pocket and he thanks...

Writing is just building a new world – one character, one place, one maniac at a time.

Don’t mock my suggestions, Ridley – one day in the near future, they might just save your life.” Maxwell D. Kalist.

He was breathing. That’s the first thing you always check for.

When I write, it feels like there are two little creatures that sit on each of my shoulders. One whispers, “You can do this. You’ve got what it takes.” The other sounds like my mother-in-law.

Nearly two years of dates. Still no question. Her mother and father want to set a proper date. Still no question. Her friends keep asking, when, Natasha? When? But she still hasn’t been asked The...

I like to discover something new each day, to interpret the world in a way others might not, like a child might approach new experiences.

It was all death.

Are there not times, Ridley, when you yourself wish only to hear the best in people – and not to be dragged downwards into the underworld we all regularly inhabit?

His manhood sways briefly, then comes to a standstill.

If I don’t stay in and write, I feel like a prisoner.

People who don’t read fiction are scared of what’s inside their own heads.

It’s unpleasant magic, the kind that darkens the senses, the kind no one wants to experience, but once in a lifetime might not be able to avoid.

Grumman provided the excuse and Nader provided the pain.