Writing on a computer feels like a recipe for writer's block. I can type so fast that I run out of thoughts, and then I sit there and look at the words on the screen, and move them around, and never get anywhere. Whereas in a notebook I just keep plodding along, slowly, accumulating sentences, sometimes even surprising myself.

It was strange the way he loved her; a side long and almost casual love, as if loving her were simply a matter of course, too natural to mention.

The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium.

I sold a book six years after I left an MFA program. In between, there was a lot of endurance of poverty and a lot of fighting off doubt. It's all a part of the process of being or becoming a writer.

The challenge for any fiction writer is that your job involves simply sitting at a desk for a very, very long time.

Another older writer that had a huge influence on me is Chekhov. More contemporarily, it's hard to say.

You are skilled. I exhort you.