A lot of people think most YouTubers are just untalented kids who film themselves for four minutes, and that's all they do for their week.

The process of getting into Miranda mode is simply making sure I'm as gross as possible. I make sure I'm wearing funky clothes and a lot of lipstick, and I'm good to go.

Miranda was built by her haters.

How it works: it's like I have a tour, so there's, you know, some income from that. We have merchandise. There's income from that. Then on YouTube, there's ad revenue... so, you know, YouTube puts ads on the videos, and we need a little bit of that.

I have always wanted to tell Miranda's backstory. To me, it's so fascinating that as a YouTuber, everyone knows what we show them. No one knows what goes on when the cameras are off. I always thought, what would Miranda do in her time off?

When Miranda first started becoming popular, not many people knew who she was. People were confused by her. They thought she was a real person. I got a lot of interesting responses.

I've always done YouTube myself: everything is written, edited, produced, and promoted by myself.

I always admired Netflix's business model; they are really good at what they do.

I share more than most people probably do online.

I chose to share my life online, so I can't really complain about it. There's not much that's off limits.

Life isn't always wonderful.

I think we all have a little crazy in us.

My fans are my family. I love them so much.

I've always been very open and very honest with my fans. I want them to know that I'm genuine, and I am who I am, and I'm not faking it for the camera.

Miranda is confidently untalented at singing. Very off-putting. Shrill. But she thinks she's wonderful, so power to her.

In the beginning, people watched me to hate on me. They thought Miranda was a real person. People just couldn't understand why this strange girl was so confident. And then slowly, I started getting fans.

As much as I love L.A., I don't want to live in L.A. I feel very congested when I'm in the city.

Even before I was in New York, I couldn't even count how many places I lived in L.A. Definitely over 10.

Miranda's my character; I created her! But there's a lot of comedy I want to bring to the world that isn't just Miranda.

I've seen every episode of 'Seinfeld.'

I want to tell Miranda's story more broadly than what I have been in these five-minute videos on the Internet. She can live in a longer format.

'Sag Harbor' was a very different book for me. It changed the way I thought about books that I wanted to do.

The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words 'All Men' exclude a vast number of citizens.

I use New York to talk about home, but the ideas in 'Colossus' could be transferred to other cities. The story about Central Park is really about the first day of spring in any park. The Coney Island chapter is really about beaches and summer and heat waves.

Having a wife and kids drove home the brutal reality of the slave system for me - the price it exacted on families. On the other hand, whenever I despair over our history, I am brought back to hope, the hope that things will get better, for my children.

Slavery was a violent, brutal, immoral system, and in accurately depicting how it worked, you have to include that, obviously. Or else you are lying.

If you're writing a detective novel or horror or sci-fi, you want to expand or reinvigorate the genre in your own little way.

What isn't said is as important as what is said.

I think a joke is a form of truth-telling. A good joke that's absurd contains elements of our daily darkness and also a possibility to escape that darkness. So, for me, humor is an attempt to capture everyday tragedy and everyday hopeful moments that we experience all of the time.

I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.

I admire Vegas's purity, its entirely wholesome artificiality.

You can raze the old buildings and erect magnificent corporate towers, hose down Port Authority, but you can't change people.

The contemporary casino is more than a gambling destination: it is a multifarious pleasure enclosure intended to satisfy every member of the family unit.

Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving.

For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job.

Each book requires a different kind of treatment and structural gambit.

A lot of my writer friends live near me, and that makes people think we just hang around with one another in cafes, trading work and discussing 'Harper's' and what not. But I rarely see them. We're home working.

I am not sure the issue of race in America will ever be completely solved.

Monsters are a storytelling tool, like domestic realism and close third.

Stephen King in general, as well as films of the apocalypse from the '70s, had a big influence on 'Zone One.'

If you want to understand America, it's slavery.

My mom's mother was from Virginia, but I don't feel much of a tie. I'm very much anti-South for many, many reasons. Whenever I go down there, people are always looking at me funny, you know.

You can't rush inspiration.

I'm someone who just likes being in my cave and thinking up weird stuff.

Write what you know.

Growing up devouring horror comics and novels, and being inspired to become a writer because of horror novels, movies, and comic books, I always knew I was going to write a horror novel.

I'm just trying to keep things rich for me creatively and for the readers who follow me.

Early on my career, I figured out that I just have to write the book I have to write at that moment. Whatever else is going on in the culture is just not that important. If you could get the culture to write your book, that would be great. But the culture can't write your book.

I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.

I live in Brooklyn. I moved here 14 years ago for the cheap rent. It was a little embarrassing because I was raised in Manhattan, and so I was a bit of a snob about the other boroughs.