I'm sure you're aware, with the time it takes to put these books together, everything can suddenly start coming out at once even though I wrote anything between one and five years ago.

Most regular superhero books are designed to go on forever; of course, very few of them do, but the point is they are trying to throw mud against the wall and hope it will stick, and most of it slides off.

Wouldn't want to write the X-Men, and I suppose the X-Men is the ultimate Marvel comic, and I really wouldn't want to go anywhere near it at all, although on the other had I wouldn't mind having a crack at something like the Punisher.

It's nice to be in a situation where the two books that I write for a sort of regular monthly income are also works that I enjoy immensely, rather than them being some kind of bread and butter, do it because you have to do it.

Yeah, Hitman I suppose is most of the time a lighter read than Preacher; it was always going to be.

I can't really put it in one sentence because although on one hand Preacher is about faith and yes it is also about, I suppose, the search for God, the search for faith and the manipulation and the abuse committed by figures in whom I suppose people have faith.

I don't necessarily write everything as automatically assuming it will be collected, there's nothing that says Hitman will be collected, though it might be.

I guess you can stay sort of true to the story; you don't have to artificially bring the character back from whatever doom you've designed for them, you can tell the story, I suppose, honestly.

It would have shown people that I was prepared to do that kind of work, although I find myself in a position now where I don't really need to and I could pick and choose the kind of characters I'd like to do.

As the scripts come in they are sent to the artists, and the artists are either very busy, or ready to start.

I'm sure you're aware, with the time it takes to put these books together, everything can suddenly start coming out at once even though I wrote anything between one and five years ago.

If you look at Marvel Comics, there are very few Marvel characters I would like to write.

I suppose that Heartland, Unknown Soldier and Pride and Joy represent not a quieter side but more of a serious side to my work, something I've been getting into recently.

With a mini series you can give the story a proper sense of pacing, a proper sense of closure.

There's immense fun to be had as long as you can sort of sneak it past DC. I have been told on occasion that I need to have more respect for these characters.

Hitman does well and it certainly does well enough to survive, but at the same time I don't want to involve the character into the DC Universe even if it meant more sales, to the point where we sort of upset the balance that we have at the moment.

Preacher is a book that somehow allows me time by its settling on it's characters, that sort of modern gothic western feel. You're not likely to see the boat veering too far from that.

You know, I think I did originally have some sort of idea of maybe a Where Eagles Dare kind of mission against impossible odds, but it really sort of died before I had a chance to really go anywhere with it, and then just doing the book was out of the question.

I tend to forget what I'm doing will ever be read while I'm writing it, and just get on with the task at hand.

I've seen a fair bit of the States and the rest of the world, and I'm convinced that there's nowhere I'd be happier, there's nowhere I'm missing out on because I'm in N.Y.

The comics I read as a kid were much more influenced by TV and movies. Encountering superheroes as an adult without that kind of childhood sentimentality, it just doesn't allow you, or in my case at least, it wouldn't let me take the characters seriously.

Tension demands release. Unusual tension demands release that can only be described as appalling.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.

It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library. And if a library have interest it is; if not, it isn't.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

It's clear to me that there is no good reason for many philosophy books to sound as complicated as they do.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I have written about 10 books, all just practical encouragement for moms.

Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed.

Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist.

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are some friends you don't meet for twenty years and when you meet them again it's as if no twenty years has happened - you're lucky when that happens. I feel the same about books.

Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

In my subconscious, my books were part of a single emotional journey.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I never buy magazines, I never even buy books.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.

As a strong supporter of our 2nd Amendment rights, I believe tougher enforcement of our nation's existing gun laws must be done before any more laws are enacted and put on the books.

The whole story of the comfort women, the system of forced sexual slavery, the medical experiments of Unit 731, is not something that is in the US psyche. That is changing because many books are coming out.