We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.

Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.

There are so many different ways, most of them helpful and legal, to get yourself into a state of mind where writing is possible. It's going to be different for each person.

Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are.

You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating and intricate style that might not appeal to as many readers but will be incredibly meaningful to the readers you have. Truly, that's as wonderful if not more wonderful.

I remember I had had one woman who had three or four kids, and some of them were having problems. I said, 'Maybe you could go write somewhere else, away from your house.' And sure enough, all kinds of wonderful stuff emerged. She was keeping too much charge of herself because she couldn't stop being a mother when she was in the house. You have to find your own way of letting loose, if you're one of those people.