If you just go get one of these little fine arts degrees or writing program degrees, it never forces you to confront your responsibility as narrator, whereas any of the social sciences make you at look the interaction between the storyteller and story.

Mama learned to laugh with them, before they could laugh at her, and to do it so well no one could be sure what she really thought or felt.

I do not write about nice people. I am not nice people.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time.

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.