So I may not have had a gothic childhood, but childhood makes its own gothicity.

I attended Catholic school. We received a great education from the nuns. ... Also, guilt. Guilt and a feeling of never being satisfied with what you've done. And a sense that you are inadequate and a big phony. All useful for a writer. I'm always being edited by my inner nun.

If death is in the room, it's pretty interesting. But I would also say that I'm interested in getting myself to believe that it's going to happen to me. I'm interested in it, because if you're not, you're nuts. It's really de facto what we're here to find out about.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where art came in, after that.

I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.

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.