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.

Short story characters, mine anyway, are usually driven by impulse, not so much by their histories and the choices that they have to make.

Gainfully unemployed, very proud of it, too.

I feel quite at home writing short stories but nervous and anxious when writing novels, as if the bad time of consecutive failures might arise again.

It's my feeling that any writer can get an emotion into a story without being sentimental as long as the emotion is dealt with honestly, with sufficient clarity, and detail.

It's better to be nominated for awards than not to be nominated for them, but of course to some degree such awards [National Book Award] are always subjective.

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.