You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.

There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about.

Ralph also took some classes in philosophy and literature and felt himself on the brink of some kind of huge discovery about himself. But it never came.

She won't give him back his look.

Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.