I could have been, and may one day well be a high school English teacher, because I've been given so much I just feel like I have to give something back. The fact that some people consider my work to be good or strong, it's nice, but I know in my heart that if it's not coming - oftentimes it's probably not coming from the best place.

Be kind to the living.

I'm a better musician now, and I rarely practice because age has taught me the value of economy. And I think I'm a better writer now because I don't waste as much time, dilly-dallying and sassafrassin' and sloop and sloppin' and frying eggs. When you start writing, half the time you're just saying howdy to the page. My process now is a little more lean and muscular. I don't waste a lot of time. When I had kids, I learned how much time I had before, and how much time you actually need to do something. If you don't have time, you'll just do it and get it done.

I'm not interested in food. It's just fuel.

The basic thing is to be humble, and pretend you're a bartender in the tavern of life. Don't get too comfortable and don't really listen to anybody else. Don't stand around with a bunch of writers and talk about writing. You know when you see plumbers at a plumbers convention, usually they're not talking about plumbing: they're talking about whatever it is that two men happen to talk about. They're talking about sports, their wives and children. I just tell my students, don't talk about writing too much, just go out and do it. Find out whatever you need to get to the mainland.

I can write anywhere really. I have a hard time writing when the birds are tweeting and the brooks are running outside. I've tried that several times, for months at a time, trying to write in a quiet, wonderful place where birds are twittering and coffee's brewing. And nothing happens. But if I'm in an old dump like my old apartment and I can't find my fingernail clippers and nothing's working except the old tea maker, that's just great. You always have to find and live in a place that's a little uncomfortable when you're a writer. You need a burr in your side.

But what difference does it make? ... When you're mixed, you see how absurd this business of race is.