I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.

I do believe that as you write more and age, the arrogance and most of the vanity goes. Or it is a vanity met with vast gratitude, that you were hit by something as you stood in the way of it, that anybody is listening.

You need to see a bit of hell now and then. That, and great joy.

I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It's a myth. There's so much bad gun stuff.

I don't write under the ghost of Faulkner. I live in the same town and find his life and work inspiring, but that's it. I have a motorcycle and tool along the country lanes. I travel at my own speed.

A writers job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.

My stories do have plot. They're not just scattered language; they're controlled, toward an end.