It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, "Read," but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, "Don't read, don't think, just write," and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think, "There must be something else people do," you won't be able to quit.

Never underestimate the meanness in people's souls... Even when they're being kind... especially when they're being kind.

people who believe in miracles do not make much fuss when they actually encounter one

Peoples lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, unfathomable-deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum. . . . What I wanted [to write down] was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together-radiant, everlasting.

She was learning, quite late, what many people around her appeared to have known since childhood that life can be perfectly satisfying without major achievements.

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they're personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I've learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.