There are things I don't like, like sitting at the head of the class. It makes me uncomfortable. I'll do it in a seminar if I have to, but with a workshop, I try to put myself in the circle somewhere. Because that hopefully frees up some people by making somebody else sit at the nominal head of the table.

Even when it comes to writing fiction, how do you encompass all this stuff that's right on the tip of your tongue? You have to fold that into what you're working on.

I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it.

Sometimes I would get frustrated, I'd think, "You know, this is a good book, how come no one is paying attention to it?" So it's nice to have some recognition.

I had a student once come up to me and we were talking about this incident, and, of course, I never had the right thing to say. But later on, I realized I should have said: Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.

People are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.

If all the students who slept through lectures were laid end to end, they'd all be a lot more comfortable. If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.