I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad.

I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.

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

I've learned over the years that the writing is smarter and far larger than the writer and his or her own desires for it.

I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live.

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.