I think back when I was kind of a crappy writer, I really did know my time was better spent working and having adventures and seeing the world.

Some people tell me they would be afraid of my characters, but I tell those people [that] they meet these characters all the time. They just don't care about them when they meet them, at the gas station, the car wash, the post office even.

I thought that you had to learn to write by yourself and if you couldn't do it, then you were out of luck.

That's where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and '50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal.

In a regular class I don't focus on the form, but I think that focus is helpful for brainstorming and coming up with ideas quickly, especially with autobiographical material.

You can't beat a good sonnet, and you can write a sonnet without being married to the damned thing.

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.