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

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?'

It is very difficult to teach navigation theory to someone who clings to the shore.

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.

There isn't a thought or feeling that doesn't alter or deepen when written. We are a writing animal. That is why all of us feel we have a book inside us. It isn't an illusion. We have got a book inside us.

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

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