I don't know a family that isn't touched by some sort of addiction.

All we have is the story we tell.

There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.

I realized the structure in a collection is how they're put together. Structuring the collection became the art of it for me. Because the stories had all been written.

I think so, too. I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.

The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25.

You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.