Do you write novels?" I said. "Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.

I love the Bahamas, and I used to go there all the time with my friend who passed away, Henry. And I love it there, especially that island [Grand Exuma], so I've been there a lot over the twenty years.

The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up.

There's this great Ron Carlson story, "A Note on the Type," and it's about this guy who keeps escaping from prison. He's really good at escaping, but he gets caught all the time, because he can't stop writing his name on underpasses where he's running from the law. And there's this whole beautiful paragraph about how to run is to write. And, you know, it's obviously about the writer's life.

Movement helps keep me centered. I am a disaster, for instance, at sitting meditation, but I'm pretty decent at walking meditation.

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story.

When I was a little kid, I used to walk miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of railroad tracks.