'Sag Harbor' was a very different book for me. It changed the way I thought about books that I wanted to do.

The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words 'All Men' exclude a vast number of citizens.

I use New York to talk about home, but the ideas in 'Colossus' could be transferred to other cities. The story about Central Park is really about the first day of spring in any park. The Coney Island chapter is really about beaches and summer and heat waves.

Having a wife and kids drove home the brutal reality of the slave system for me - the price it exacted on families. On the other hand, whenever I despair over our history, I am brought back to hope, the hope that things will get better, for my children.

Slavery was a violent, brutal, immoral system, and in accurately depicting how it worked, you have to include that, obviously. Or else you are lying.

If you're writing a detective novel or horror or sci-fi, you want to expand or reinvigorate the genre in your own little way.

What isn't said is as important as what is said.

I think a joke is a form of truth-telling. A good joke that's absurd contains elements of our daily darkness and also a possibility to escape that darkness. So, for me, humor is an attempt to capture everyday tragedy and everyday hopeful moments that we experience all of the time.

I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.

I admire Vegas's purity, its entirely wholesome artificiality.

You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people.

The contemporary casino is more than a gambling destination: it is a multifarious pleasure enclosure intended to satisfy every member of the family unit.

Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving.

For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job.

Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit.

A lot of my writer friends live near me, and that makes people think we just hang around with one another in cafes, trading work and discussing 'Harper's' and what not. But I rarely see them. We're home working.

I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved.

Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third.

Stephen King in general, as well as films of the apocalypse from the '70s, had a big influence on 'Zone One.'

If you want to understand America, it's slavery.

My mom's mother was from Virginia, but I don't feel much of a tie. I'm very much anti-South for many, many reasons. Whenever I go down there, people are always looking at me funny, you know.

You can't rush inspiration.

I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff.

Write what you know.

Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel.

I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me.

Early on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book.

I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.

I live in Brooklyn. I moved here 14 years ago for the cheap rent. It was a little embarrassing because I was raised in Manhattan, and so I was a bit of a snob about the other boroughs.

I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It's like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French.

I grew up reading the 'Village Voice' and wanting to be one of these multidisciplinary music writers, film writers, book writers. And I lucked out getting a job at the 'Voice' right after college.

I have a good poker face because I am half-dead inside.

I'm of that subset of native New Yorkers who can't drive.

I don't generally follow sports. At an early age, I discovered that nature had apportioned me only a small reserve of enthusiasm. Best to ration.

I like to know how I'm supposed to feel about things. Just a little clue or hint.

If the world's nations can set aside their petty bickering over religion, politics, and territory, certainly I can 'get that Olympic Spirit' and rise above my prejudices.

I didn't know I was a zombie pedant until I started considering what from the zombie canon to keep in 'Zone One' and what to ignore.

In college, I wrote maybe three short stories.

There's not a lot of good TV.

In America, when you hear about the Underground Railroad, it's so evocative. You think it's a literal subway for a few minutes before your teacher goes on and describes where it actually was.

Part of being in New York is being able to brag about what used to be there.

I love getting out of the Q train at Union Square. It's such a mix of people, like a party. There's always an errand you can do along there, whether it's picking up contacts or buying poker chips.

I try to have each book be an antidote to the one before.

The terror of figuring out a new genre, of telling a new story, is what makes the job exciting, keeps me from getting bored, and I assume it keeps whoever follows my work from getting bored as well.

I wanted to be one of these multidisciplinary critics who is doing music one day, TV the next, and books the next.

Access to information, to music or any kind of culture, is getting faster and faster and more streamlined. At each juncture, people are thrown into tumult and have to adapt or die.

In 'John Henry Days,' I was taking my idea of junketeering and sort of blowing it up to absurd extremes.

I never actually went anywhere when I was a journalist. I was a critic, and I just sort of got stuff in the mail and chatted about it.

As always, a lot of bad books will be published. Some good books will be published, and you have to seek them out.

It's always hard to write and get your words out there, to find an editor, a publisher - readers! - who are going to appreciate them.