Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it.

The mystery lies in the use of language to express human life.

The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.

A short story is confined to one mood, to which everything in the story pertains. Characters, setting, time, events, are all subject to the mood. And you can try more ephemeral, more fleeting things in a story - you can work more by suggestion - than in a novel. Less is resolved, more is suggested, perhaps.

My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight.

At the time of writing, I don't write for my friends or myself either; I write for it, for the pleasure of it.

I think that as you learn more about writing you learn to be direct.