The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.

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.

When you break the heart of the philosopher, you must apply great force and cunning strategy, but when the deed is completed, the heart lies in great stony ruin at your feet. If you succeed in breaking it, the job is done once and for all. It will not be repaired.

When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.

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.

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

Literature is not an instruction manual.