I go to the movies at least five times a week, and after a while everything becomes a blur to me.

I gave my mother a matching set [of mugs] for Christmas, and she accepted them as graciously as possible, announcing that they would make the perfect pet bowls. The mugs were set on the kitchen floor and remained there until the cat chipped a tooth and went on a hunger strike.

No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.

I think it's good to have the alone time. Well, I kind of have to, because I have to be alone in order to work, so I have alone time. And then I go on tour and I have being-around-people time.

Maybe one day, I would write a story about arguing in public, and those would come in handy in some way.

If you are any kind of an artist, then validation . . . can be a result, but you're going to do the work anyway.

They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.