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.

Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don't get all writerly: 'He opened the door.' There, it's open.

Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart right over.

When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.

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

The other day I was playing Scrabble. I saw that I could close the space in D-E- -Y. I had an N and an F. Which do you think I chose? What was the word I made?

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.