“Hope was a dangerous emotion that more often than not led men into foolishness and peril, made them risk their lives and lose their wives and part with fortunes that they never recovered.”

If there’s any mystery to me at all, it’s probably due to the fact that I’m not online and don’t go to conventions–which means that I’m probably not as accessible to fans as most writers are these days. If that makes me seem like a weird recluse, so be it.

An enigma? That’s not a bad persona to have. I should probably shut up and let the mystery continue! It’s good for my career.

There were shadows galore in the dim light, but there was one shadow that did not correspond to any object in the room. It lurked next to the fireplace, a formless, undulating darkness.

I know that I, personally, lost respect for writers who, when there was a downturn in the market, started shouting from the rooftops that they wrote thrillers and suspense novels rather than horror.

Like most authors, I’m a raging egomaniac. I know that about myself. And I know that, if I had internet access,

Life is short. Eternity is long.

I would waste countless hours looking up things about myself, writing fake posts about how great I am and arguing with people who don’t like my work. It saves me a lot of time and frustration to just stay out of the loop.

Real life was messier than fiction, and in it you didn’t always have time to do or say the right things.

I write horror because I enjoy it. I’m endlessly fascinated by the supernatural, by death, by darkness. And, to be honest, I don’t have much choice. This is the way my mind works.

Horror writers can write about everything in the real world that a mainstream novelist can–plus the supernatural, which is the most fertile field for metaphor imaginable.

I think the internet is a great marketing tool–but marketing is not my job. I’m a writer. My job is to write novels.

The Revelation was my master’s project, and after I finished it, I thought I’d send it off to a publisher and within a year or so be a rich and famous writer.

In real life, good people die all the time and a**holes can live long and happy lives. It’s a crapshoot.

Murder is an inherently evil act, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how convincing the rationalizations.

I write horror. And if no one wants to buy my books, I’ll just keep writing them until they do sell–and get a job at Taco Bell in the meantime.

It helps readers identify with their problems. It also helps ground the supernatural events that follow in a recognizable reality and perhaps gives some of my wilder scenarios a little verisimilitude.

There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.

The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

There is very little distance between being a fool and being wise; they are extremely close. When we are really, truly fools, when we actually acknowledge our foolishness, then we are way ahead. We are not even in the process of becoming wise – we are already wise.

We also want to try and slow down all this foolishness that’s going on between the East and West.

That’s definitely my goal, and always has been through the Universal Zulu Nation, is to show that music breaks down all that foolishness and can bring all types of people together, especially when you can mix it and shape it.

We want you to sit down and leave your egos at home and let’s get an understanding as to where all this is foolishness coming from.

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.

Your life may be messed and your foolishness may have put you into captivity but Jesus can do the whatever it is that is immeasurably more in your life.