Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.

A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.

I think it's important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience.

In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinetmaker is to a house carpenter.

Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. "I'm coming back some day," they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymore.

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.

It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, worldview and thoughts.