I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper.

The landscape of childhood shapes us as it shapes the characters in our stories. You never forget the sacred places of your childhood.

I think I've learned to be mindful. I may not have taken the time to try to understand narrative techniques, let's say, with any rigor, if I did not also have to try to explain those techniques to someone else.

The universe may be tenderly indifferent to our fate, but we shouldn’t be. We are our brothers’ keepers. There is right, and there is wrong. There are consequences to our actions or inactions. Disregard can be an act of violence.

A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.