She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.

She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.

A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.

I wanted to live in Paris and write nothing but fiction and be perfectly free. I had decided all this had to be settled by the time I was thirty, and so I gave up my job and moved to Paris at twenty-eight. I just held my breath and jumped. I didn’t even look to see if there was water in the pool.

Decide what the rest of your life is to be. Whatever you are now, you might be forever.

There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.

I write every day as a matter of course It is not a burden. It is the way I live.