An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

I'm not first and foremost interested in story and the what-happens, but I'm interested in who's telling it and how they're telling it and the effects of whatever happened on the characters and the people.

For peace of mind, I will lie about any thing at any time.

The only time the word baby doesn't scare me is the time that it should, when it is what a man calls me.

What I think," Chatty says, "is that if a man loves a woman more than a woman loves a man, then they're even.

I'm not good at small talk; I'm not good at big talk; and medium talk just doesn't come up.

I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.