I'm not sure I would have ever decided to try to write when I was forty-five if I hadn't already gotten that degree [in English].

Some people were born just so they could be buried.

Id always been a big reader, and I loved books, and I always thought writing would be a great way to get by in the world.

I was always a big reader, even when everything was bad and miserable.

I think some people at Doubleday worried about that a bit when Knockemstiff came out, but, with the exception of one or two people who complained that I didn't do justice to the many good people who lived in the holler, most of the local objections have been aimed at the violence and foul language.

I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.

I've never heard of that anthology [Vance Randolph, Pissing in the Snow], but you can be sure I'll buy it now.