In America you make your plans and then they happen.

If somebody says your story is only published because you look nice in the photo, that maybe spurs you on to write.

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

I think that the practice of writing every day was what made me remember that writing doesn't have anything to do with publishing books. It can be totally separate and private - a comforting thought.

I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, but thought 'Husbands and Wives' was great.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.

I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.