When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue - having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly - in a good way.

Whether you're eighteen or sixty, in a certain way, whatever you know is valid.

Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?

When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

What evil does first in the world, maybe, is distract us from our pursuit of goodness.