I prefer short stories, but publishers would, of course, rather that writers produce novels, since novels are still more commercially viable.

Because it is the Midwest, no one really glitters because no one has to, it's more of a dull shine, like frequently used silverware.

What a midwesterner he was, a thoroughly unhip guy with his heart in the usual place, on the sleeve, in plain sight.

My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads.

There is such a thing as the poetry of a mistake, and when you say, "Mistakes were made," you deprive an action of its poetry, and you sound like a weasel.

There is no weather in malls.

Literature is not a sack race. There aren't real winners and losers in the Republic of Letters.