"End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them, but as I wrote my own, I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed, yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have, and take for granted: hot showers, enough food, friends, routines."

"Our fears are an amazing gift of the imagination... a way of glimpsing what might be the future when there's still time to influence how that future will play out."

"I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write."

"I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions."

"I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough."

"When I started on MySpace, people wanted to support me, but once I rose to fame with the MTV show, they felt like I had abandoned them for some reason, that I was too famous to talk to them anymore."

"I think all the stuff that happens before the pictures are taken is much more exciting."

"I really think I like poisonous snakes."