I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they're not. They're not out there waiting. They're not gonna use their intelligence on your book.

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

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.

I don't really believe in a creative-writing major as an undergraduate. It's a bad idea, terrible. I've met creative-writing majors from other places and they don't know a goddamn thing. They're the worst students. They just think they're good because they could pass.

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.

I don't really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.

You've got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself.