I didn't intend to become a short-story writer. I became one because I finished a couple of short stories and realized that's what I wanted to do and could do with children and with all the other things in my life.

Every time you finish something ... you figure you've finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns out you haven't. You have learned how to write that story, or that book, but you haven't learned how to write the next one.

I believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads.

Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.

I really believe one of the jobs of a writer is to stretch as far as you can into other voices.

If I miss anything, it's being able to hang out in the city of New York meeting people and talking to them on the corner.

I know I've done good work. I've been very serious about my writing, and I've done the best that I could. But I don't feel that I've done more than I should have. In fact, I've done less than I should have.