I think persistence in the face of adversity is an essential part of a writer’s job description. If you don’t care enough about it to avoid being easily disheartened that way, you really should be doing something else.

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else.

As a friend of mine, herself a writer, says, 'People who spend the most meaningful hours of their lives in the exclusive company of imaginary people are apt to be a little strange'

If you build a better mousetrap, Nature will build a better mouse.

One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I'm going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I'll have lost nothing-writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.

The short story, I should point out, is perforce a labor of love in today's literary world; there's precious little economic incentive to write one.

People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things.