I don't engage in self-censorship. But I do change everybody to have red hair in the last draft. ... If you give people red hair when in real life they haven't got red hair, I've noticed they don't recognize themselves, anyway.

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?'

No one is shallow and vulgar forever; sooner or later the whole species likes to be profound.

Unlike lions and dogs, we are a dissenting animal. We need to dissent in the same way that we need to travel, to make money, to keep a record of our time on earth and in dream, and to leave a permanent mark. Dissension is a drive, like those drives.

The secret of literature, which conventional people don't guess, is that writers are forever looking for the surprising revelation - not for reinforcement of collective wisdom.

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

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.