The head has its confines. The head’s got those all right, and the heart. The heart has its reasons.

Every great narrative is at least two narratives, if not more - the thing that is on the surface and then the things underneath which are invisible.

There is a kind of poetry, bad and good, in evrything, everywhere we look.

And it was always the stories that needed the telling that gave us the rope we could cross any river with. They balanced us high above any crevasse. They made us be natural acrobats. They made us brave. They met us well. They changed us. It was in their nature to.

I went to the top of Vesuvius and looked in.

But everything written has style. The list of ingredients on the side of a cornflakes box has style. And everything literary has literary style. And style is integral to a work. How something is told correlates with - more - makes what's being told. A story is its style.

Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.