A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth.

Plot does not simply move with time, but spreads out conceptually in metaphorical space.

There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now."

Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol.

What a strange thing it is to recognize a sound like the shriek of a wounded animal, when you've never heard the shriek of a wounded animal.

Sometimes, in that darkness, there is a single act of love, some selfless gesture, an aspiration, and we see that it's not been all waste, all hopeless, and we can ... well ... go on.

Let good people sin. Give virtue to rotters.