Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.

The Americans only like things they can label, even if it kills them. Think of those poor Latin American writers. Some of them are very good. But the "magical realism" label has absolutely ruined them. The critics are like tourists who return from a trip saying they've "done" Machu Picchu: "Okay, we've done magical realism," so now we can throw it out.

The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'

Southerners make good novelists: they have so many stories because they have so much family.

There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.

The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge.

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is the business of surprise. I never know what is coming next. The phrase that sounds in the head changes when it appears on the page. Then I start probing it with a pen, finding new meanings. Sometimes I burst out laughing at what is happening as I twist and turn sentences. Strange business, all in all. One never gets to the end of it. That’s why I go on, I suppose. To see what the next sentences I write will be.