I know I learn a lot from the students in my class and I'm not just saying that to sound like some generous teacher.

My mother was making $135 a week, but she had resilience and imagination. She might take frozen vegetables, cook them with garlic, onion and Spam, and it would taste like a four-star dinner.

Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.

We receive and we lose, and we must try to achieve gratitude; and with that gratitude to embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses.

Even a day writing badly for me is 10 times better than a day where I don’t write at all.

I think the writer's job is to paint the gray because no life is clearly defined.

As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.