Literature is not an instruction manual.

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.

Everybody should customize their names.

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

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.

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.

The truth is that I'm never sure how any of my books will be received, and because I can be thin-skinned, I try not to read too many reviews when a book first comes out.