When you're dead, you're dead. No one is going to remember me when I'm dead. Oh, maybe a few friends will remember me affectionately. Being remembered isn't the most important thing, anyhow. It's what you do when you are here that's important.

I learned at a very early age that life is a battle. My family was poor, my neighborhood was poor. The only way that I could get away from the awfulness of life, at that time, was at the movies. There I decided that my big aim was to make money. And it was there that I became a very determined woman.

We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.

None of us, in our culture of comfort, know how to prepare ourselves for dying, but that's what we should do every day. Every single day, we die a thousand deaths.

I think if you're watching 'Dumb and Dumber,' I don't know whether you need to buy the Blu-ray of a comedy or something like that. But if you're watching 'Event Horizon,' 'Death Race,' 'Alien vs. Predator' I mean, I think these movies are definitely enhanced by the Blu-ray experience.

Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.