I've had a lot of glamour come my way in the last 10 years - you know, movie stars and mansions and red carpets and trips to Europe and crazy stuff I never would have imagined - and I look at them as if I'm the bartender in the corner of the room. They've never gone into my psyche. I look at them with distance, and wonder.

I feel that writers think with their noses to the ground, and the dark stuff kind of comes to me more, even though I really am sort of an upbeat guy. It's an honest descent into darkness. And you can't have the joy without the grief - it's why we listen to Mozart's 'Requiem.'

Don't outline your stories. A lot of fiction workshops say you should. I say the opposite. I quote Grace Paley: "We write what we don't know we know."

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.

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

I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.

What is art if not a concentrated and impassioned effort to make something with the little we have, the little we see?