I was always writing. I just didn't know if I was any good.

In revision, your imagination becomes deeply engaged with your material. It's when you come to know your characters and begin to perceive their motivations and values.

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.

What you create when you're teaching fiction writing is a kind of literary salon, not a social club or a mutual admiration society, not a debating society, not a repair shop, not a fight club or a soap box. It's a place to have a conversation about a story.

Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential.

There were the fairy tales my father told to me at bedtime. All the standards. I thought my father invented wolves.

I learned to love stories by listening to them.