I meet a person, and in my mind I'm saying three minutes; I give you three minutes to show me the spark.

Just because you have stopped sinking doesn't mean you're not still underwater.

I do feel that if you can write one good sentence and then another good sentence and then another, you end up with a good story.

nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.

I have written letters that are failures, but I have written few, I think, that are lies. Trying to reach a person means asking the same question over and over again: Is this the truth, or not? I begin this letter to you, then, in the western tradition. If I understand it, the western tradition is: Put your cards on the table.

Sometimes I can better describe a person by another person's reaction. In a story in my first book, I couldn't think of a way to sufficiently describe the charisma of a certain boy, so the narrator says, "I knew girls who saved his gum."

There’s so much I can’t read because I get so exasperated. Someone starts describing the character boarding the plane and pulling the seat back. And I just want to say, Babe, I have been downtown. I have been up in a plane. Give me some credit.