Poppy Z. Brite

My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was allowed to read whatever…

— Poppy Z. Brite

If you’re ever lucky enough to belong somewhere, if a place takes you in and you take it into yourself, you don't…

— Poppy Z. Brite

Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favorites. It's a good way to learn, as long as you move…

— Poppy Z. Brite

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

— Poppy Z. Brite

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

— Poppy Z. Brite

“Let the night come. We are not afraid.”

— Poppy Z. Brite

Horror is the badge of humanity, worn proudly, self-righteously, and often falsely.

— Poppy Z. Brite

“+ He wasn’t much for erasing anyway. Sometimes your mistakes showed you the really interesting connections between your brain, your hand, and…

— Poppy Z. Brite

You can only maintain an immensely gothic attitude for so long before either killing yourself or beginning to feel like a poser.

— Poppy Z. Brite

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.

— Poppy Z. Brite

I've certainly learned a great deal from my husband, though, and could never have written a book like Liquor without him and…

— Poppy Z. Brite

“They were kissing again, carefully at first, learning the shape and texture of each other's lips, testing the sharpness of the teeth…

— Poppy Z. Brite

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…

— Poppy Z. Brite

Why bother? I was right all along: the second you make yourself vulnerable to someone, they start drawing blood.

— Poppy Z. Brite

I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.

— Poppy Z. Brite

“Terry remembered a summer two or three years ago when there had been a plague of luna moths (...) One night Ghost…

— Poppy Z. Brite

It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact…

— Poppy Z. Brite

“In every long-term relationship are a few pockets of deep and dangerous water into which one can step unaware if not careful.…

— Poppy Z. Brite

“I carried my pint to a corner table and sat just looking at it for a moment: the head of foam, the…

— Poppy Z. Brite

“There were books about how to be gay; he'd seen them in stores and libraries. Some of them even had diagrams. But…

— Poppy Z. Brite

I believe in whatever gets you throught the night. [...] Night is the hardest time to be alive. For me, anyway. It…

— Poppy Z. Brite

“He has ' le coeur comme un artichaud '. Eddy fumbled for her high school French. 'A heart like an artichoke?' '…

— Poppy Z. Brite

This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes, probably because they aren't old enough…

— Poppy Z. Brite

Some of the food in Liquor is food I've really eaten filtered through a veil of fiction.

— Poppy Z. Brite

I'm your nightmare. Did you think you were done with nightmares, now you've become one?

— Poppy Z. Brite