My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.

- Poppy Z. Brite

There are people who must spend huge amounts of time composing these online diatribes against me, all about how disgusting and terrible I am and how no one should ever read my books, and it's not enough for them to hate me, they can't stand the fact that ANYONE likes me!

- 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 the people he introduces me to and the stories he brings home.

- Poppy Z. Brite

I like visiting people's homes on Saint Joseph's Day, when people set up altars, serve food as a tribute to the saint, and invite the public - I enjoy that much more than Mardi Gras.

- Poppy Z. Brite

Yeah, I think A Confederacy of Dunces is probably the perfect New Orleans book.

- Poppy Z. Brite

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.

- Poppy Z. Brite

My mother is an office manager, my father a professor of economics and financial planner.

- 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

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.

- 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

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

- 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 to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.

- Poppy Z. Brite

In the Netherlands I read the first chapter of Exquisite Corpse to an audience that laughed in all the places I thought were funny - an experience I've never had in America!

- Poppy Z. Brite

In high school I was the dog, always, and I never have felt comfortable or right in my body, and part of my whole exhibitionist thing has probably been a way of testing to see whether or not I really was this repulsive creature that I felt like for so long.

- Poppy Z. Brite

In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other.

- Poppy Z. Brite

I think film had a terrible effect on horror fiction particularly in the 80s, with certain writers turning out stuff as slick and cliched as Hollywood movies.

- 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 I wanted.

- Poppy Z. Brite

I've tried to avoid labels, but they always find you.

- Poppy Z. Brite

I certainly don't think I would have been asked to pose for Rage if I wasn't a known writer.

- 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 like enough to put my name on it.

- Poppy Z. Brite