Ralph Kramden, as played by Jackie Gleason, was this big bumbling New York City bus driver who was kind of mean and crass and a little bit egotistical. But underneath it all, he was a big heart looking for a place to land I think.

I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is - an avoidance of your deficiencies.

I read Rand and thought, "I want to be one of the earth movers, the scientific people who power the world. I don't want to be one of these lisping liberal artsy leeches." So I was working against my actual abilities.

When I'm not writing, I tend to get depressed and a little bit surly. And then when I'm writing, suddenly I feel enlivened. Now the only thing as I'm getting older that I notice is that it's a pattern.

As far as which writers embody this form of gentle power - Tobias Wolff, for sure. His persona and his writing both share an easy, capacious confidence that says he has faith in his readers.

The number of rooms in a fictional house should be inversely proportional to the years during which the couple living in that house enjoyed true happiness.

To me that really would be the essence of kindness, to have one's awareness so developed and refined that you could tell just what was needed, and not do any more or any less, and maybe not even be aware of what you had done, except it would be a helpful thing because of how fully present you were. Well, as Aerosmith once famously said: Dream on.