Plots are ... what the writer sees with.

Ah, I'm a woman that's been clear around the world in my rocking chair, and I tell you we all get surprises now and then.

For the source of the short story is usually lyrical. And all writers speak from, and speak to, emotions eternally the same in all of us: love, pity, terror do not show favorites or leave any of us out.

The first thing we see about a short story is its mystery. And in the best short stories, we return at the last to see mystery again

Making reality real is art's responsibility.

Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them.

The very greatest mystery is in unsheathed reality itself.