I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

I think a day in your life on which nothing bad happens may be a wonderful day, but it probably isn't going to be the basis of a story.

This is true in other fields, too, that a legal aid lawyer gets a whole lot less money than a Hollywood lawyer who handles the estates of celebrities. Maybe the legal aid lawyer is doing something better, though, and maybe they're happier. It's not a completely unheard of idea, but I do think we have to remind ourselves at times to look for satisfaction in other ways.

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.

I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.

Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how well we're doing.

I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.