For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in the course of writing.

For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in the course of writing.

Literature has low enough standards. But we can avoid writing the worst literature if we make ourselves ask ourselves, every two or three sentences we write, 'Is that what I really think?'

The more original a short-story writer, the odder looking the assortment of things he or she puts together for a story.

An essay is a work of literary art which has a minimum of one anecdote and one universal idea.

The principle of literature is devotion to the particulars of life.

No work of literature is the product of only one or two conscious ideas. A story is mysteriously dense of meaning.