I'm repledging myself to human-scale values. As a fiction writer, the best data comes through the senses and is then processed through many revisions. We have to learn to be intelligent assessors of the data coming in to us and what it's doing to our mental process.

I grew up in Chicago on the South Side, and had a ton of freedom, just did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. At the risk of sounding dopey, I would say it was blissful.

In fiction, conceptualizing, I've found, produces dull and over-controlled text.

Compassion doesn't have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.

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

Our first responsibility in all things is to preserve our goodness of heart - then and only then act.

In a sense my whole life as a writer is trying to find structural ways, or formal ways, to permit that outflowing so it doesn't just look like crazy output. In other words, if it turns out that you can do a given voice, that's just kind of inclination. But then if you can find a way to put that voice in a story so that the voice serves a purpose, then I would say that's being a writer.