I like books like 'The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher,' where the investigation of a crime becomes a way into an exploration of the society where the crime took place.

If you rewrite a paragraph fifty times and forty-nine of them are terrible, that's fine; you only need to get it right once.

I'd always been fascinated by archaeology; it was my original career plan as a kid.

Most animals are pragmatic about mysteries: If they run across something they don't understand, all they care about is whether it's edible and whether it's dangerous. Humans, on the other hand, are drawn to the mystery for its own sake.

I think it's important to earn your fan base and not just try to immediately advance to the top. If you ride to the top quickly, you're liable to fall as quickly. Take your time. It's a long journey ahead of you as an artist. There's nowhere that you're supposed to be other than right now living inside of your art.

My friends once told me I remind them of the main character from the American comedy series 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' I thought they must mean a sunny, affable girl-next-door, but instead I was confronted with Larry David! Crabby, moody, perversely neurotic Larry David. And the thing is, my friends were right.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

I'm just trying to give the best human expression that I can to any particular genre, which could be comedy, could be drama, could be horror, could be thriller.