ROB THURMAN

Writing monsters is fun, and it's easy. When I want one, I just reach under the bed and pull it out, kicking and screaming.

I need it all: in-depth characterization, fantastic/warped world building, a plot that could out-race Secretariat, and a 'voice.' I need to hear a uniqueness in the author's voice.

I love Urban Fantasy, even though I'm inevitably compared to 'Supernatural,' only a little more edgy.

Don't accept what's out there because that is all that's out there. Look for the new and unusual. Seek out what you genuinely want to read and don't settle.

Lies were like acid, corrosive: They could dissolve trust in a heartbeat.

When life gives you lemons. . . You might as well shove 'em where the sun don't shine, because you sure as hell aren't ever going to see any lemonade.

I raised another shot. "That sound you hear is the heads of moral conservatives spontaneously exploding in the distance.

If there is no trust, there is nothing. Trust is all.

It is now. It is always now. Now is good. Now could be the best. My name is Catcher. My name was Catcher. My name...my name... I am... I am lost, I am found and then I am free and I am happy. When I jump over that edge, someone leaps with me, shoulder to shoulder. I smell kinship on him. Kinship is all. I'm not alone. Never alone. I land, earth below me, moon above. I am wolf. We are pack. And that is all I need.

I have people in my life, of course. Some write; some don't. Some read; some don't. Some stare vacantly into space when I talk the geeky talk and walk the geeky walk, but they make killer chocolate chip pancakes and so all is forgiven.

I am your brother. I was supposed to be your brother before either of us was born. Karmic debt. It appears I was Vlad the Impaler or Genghis Khan in a past life.

We all have our security blankets in this world. Some are just sharper than others.

You're the little spoon, aren't you?

Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away "Cinderella" and her shoe fetish, "The Three Little Pigs" with their violation of building codes, "Miss Muffet" and her well‐shaped tuffet—all forgotten or discounted.And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world, you have to give up the fantasies, the make‐believe.

Memories - you can't escape them, but you can't let them rule you either.

Fall leaves are brilliant with gold and red. You can cup them in your hand and wonder at them, be amazed at their uniqueness and glory. But eventually they are gone, brown, crumbling, scattered on the wind. But the tree remains. The tree is what is important. The tree lives on. That was a difficult knowledge to bear, and an even more difficult life to live. Of course, being the leaf wasn't exactly desirable either.

They don't have to choose either/or. They can have their cake and mutilate it too.

You're so very good at that. The temper, the scowl. You must drink shots of testosterone in your morning coffee.

At least that's what his note said, along with a scathing reminder that dishes didn't wash themselves and the fungus in the bathroom was one day away from evolving into sentient life. I folded the note into an airplane and sailed it across the room. It ended up perched jauntily on top of the ancient television. It looked good there and I left it as a tribute to freedom-loving fungi everywhere.

Niko caught my hand and slapped it lightly down on the bar. “Pistol whipping elderly women isn’t precisely our mission statement, Cal.” I hadn’t been going to pistol-whip her. Yell at her a little more, then pick her up and toss her out into the street. Some risk of a broken hip there, but that wasn’t pistol-whipping… unless she tried to come back in.

Leandros's favorite place had turned out not to be vegetarian, but vegan, which was for people who preferred their suicide slow.

Pooh hater,' I muttered under my breath. 'Winnie-the-Pooh was not a koala--why am I even arguing about this with you?

Snap judgments? I'd gotten over those about the time I was toilet trained. Swore off diapers and faith in the human experience all in one week.

Look at the ex-demon with his big boy pants on now.

All I cared was that she had never lied. She was honest in a world just the opposite, and a cool oasis in my life. She was who she said she was, and everything Sophia, my mother, the pathologically manipulative liar, had never been.