and did you get what you wanted from this life even so? i did.

My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form.

A man can go along obeying all the rules and then it don't matter a damn anymore.

When a reader finishes a wonderful story and lays it aside, he should have to pause for a minute and collect himself.

It's strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.

I guess my writing has changed as my life has.

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.