I don't always, or even usually, read stories from beginning to end. I start anywhere and proceed in either direction. A story is not like a road to follow, it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while.

In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.

Why is it a surprise to find that people other than ourselves are able to tell lies?

Who can ever say the perfect thing to the poet about his poetry?

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time.

For we did makeup. But we didn't forgive each other. And we didn't take steps. And it got to be too late and we saw that each of us had invested too much in being in the right and we walked away and it was a relief.

A story ... has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.