Poppy Z. Brite

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“Stare at him," said Ghost. "They won't bite you if you keep staring at them."Steve backed away. "They bite?"Not really. They hiss at you, mostly. The only time geese are ever dangerous is when you happen to be standing on the edge of a cliff. I heard about a guy that almost got killed that way."By geese?"Yeah, there was a whole flock of them coming after him. All hissing and cackling and stabbing at his ankles with their big ol' beaks. He didn't know you had to stare them right in the eye, and he panicked. They backed him right over a fifty-foot cliff."So how come he didn't die?"This guy had wings," said Ghost. "He flew away.”

“When you have too much faith in something, it's bound to hurt you. Too much faith in anything will suck you dry. In this way, all the world is a vampire.”

“New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.”

“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.”

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

“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.”