Bad people doing bad things is not interesting. What I find interesting is good people doing bad things.

I have made the best and happiest ending that I can in this world, made it out of the flax and netting and leftover trim of someone else's life, I know, but made it to keep the innocent safe and the guilty punished, and I have made it as the world should be and not as I have found it.

The past is a candle at great distance: too close to let you quit, too far to comfort you.

My writing process, such as it is, consists of a lot of noodling, procrastinating, dawdling, and avoiding.

It takes something to get married: nerve, hope, a strong desire to make a certain statement - and it takes something to stay married: more hope, determination, a sense of humor, and needs that are best met by being in a pair.

For me, the short story is the depth of a novel, the breadth of a poem, and, as you come to the last few paragraphs, the experience of surprise.

Aging is a chance to make what was good, great, and what was never so good, better...