Celebrities, even insignificant ones like me, are created to be abused by the Great Unwashed.

This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes, probably because they aren't old enough to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.

Mostly I enjoy the restaurants (my husband is a chef), though I wish we had a wider diversity of ethnic food.

My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.

My mother is an office manager, my father a professor of economics and financial planner.

I've tried to avoid labels, but they always find you.

There are people who must spend huge amounts of time composing these online diatribes against me, all about how disgusting and terrible I am and how no one should ever read my books, and it's not enough for them to hate me, they can't stand the fact that ANYONE likes me!

I like visiting people's homes on Saint Joseph's Day, when people set up altars, serve food as a tribute to the saint, and invite the public - I enjoy that much more than Mardi Gras.

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.

I've certainly learned a great deal from my husband, though, and could never have written a book like Liquor without him and the people he introduces me to and the stories he brings home.

Some of the food in Liquor is food I've really eaten filtered through a veil of fiction.

I think film had a terrible effect on horror fiction particularly in the 80s, with certain writers turning out stuff as slick and cliched as Hollywood movies.

In high school I was the dog, always, and I never have felt comfortable or right in my body, and part of my whole exhibitionist thing has probably been a way of testing to see whether or not I really was this repulsive creature that I felt like for so long.

My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was allowed to read whatever I wanted.

In the Netherlands I read the first chapter of Exquisite Corpse to an audience that laughed in all the places I thought were funny - an experience I've never had in America!

In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other.

I certainly wanted to write a book that was honest about New Orleans without explaining it to death, so much so that the first draft contained references absolutely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't lived here for several years.

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.

And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it.

I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.

I certainly don't think I would have been asked to pose for Rage if I wasn't a known writer.

Celebrities, even insignificant ones like me, are created to be abused by the Great Unwashed.

Yeah, I think A Confederacy of Dunces is probably the perfect New Orleans book.

Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.

Some nights are made for torture or reflection or the savoring of loneliness.

The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4am knows all my secrets.

We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.

Reducing a product's definition to a list of features and functions ignores the real opportunity - orchestrating technological capability to serve human needs and goals.

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

Maybe we all need to leave our children with a value legacy, and not a financial one. A value for things with a personal touch - an autographed book, a soul-searching letter.

Britons are good, though often brutal, colonists where they come into relations with entirely uncivilized tribes whose past is so remote as to be forgotten. But they trample with their heavy boots over the sensitive, delicate susceptibilities of an ancient, highly civilized and cultured nation, such as India.

Meeting someone you admire, and then that person's like, 'I'm a fan of your work' - it's a really neat feeling.

By the Nineties, so many people were moonlighting and creating their own professional identities that China generated a brisk new business in the printing of business cards.

Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race has been labeled Utopian.

The United States cannot live with terror.

I think sexuality is a window into someone's soul.

I find Washington audiences are basically the same as every other audience; they watch me and go, 'Who's idea was it to go see him? And is it too late to ask for my money back?'

Mr. Ware has no right to discharge any of his laborers on account of their political opinion.

There have been great champions in every generation.

There are many paths to enlightenment. Be sure to take one with a heart.

Music is my first love, and I can't step away from her. I love music, and I love playing and living the dream, but I also miss my family.

I got even with all the bad management I had by being a good manager.

Throw away thy rod, throw away thy wrath; O my God, take the gentle path.

The jocks that used to stuff me into a locker when I was a punk rocker are my best buddies now.

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.

Don't ever give up. Believe in yourself or no one else will. My personal saying is: 'I'd rather die knowing that I tried to do what I love.'

I represented the people of Hawaii and this nation honestly and to the best of my ability. I think I did okay.

I talk like I know what I'm saying, but I don't.

The deal is: most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them.