Success makes opportunities and so many of those "opportunities" are actually exemptions - from hardship, from unfriendliness, from struggle.

And I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations. It could be that it would take me 12 more books at six years each to get it - which means I would have to live to be 126. Which I fully intend to do, of course.

It is very easy for us to go, you know, "I am being cruel to be kind," when really we are just ... being cruel. Because it makes us feel big, or whatever.

The story sometimes writes you into a corner.

There might be a different model for a literary community that's quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity.

Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.

Early on, a story's meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it - and so things have to be ramped up.