I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.

I have a book in the pipeline of short stories. You want to hear an agent scream, say 'I'm thinking about doing a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks.

I felt like a number of things in me as a writer just clicked.

For a long time, I thought you could remain isolated and survive, and I didn't want to change that. But over the last three or four books, I've become more comfortable with the idea that I'm not really throwing anything away by being a bit more open about my books and life.

The heart makes dreams seem like ideas.

He unscrewed the lid, set it on the dash, snorted from the bottle twice, banged the steering wheel, and said, 'You got to be ready to die every day - then you got a chance.'

I said shut up once already, with my mouth.