Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.

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

If we're lucky, writer and reader alike, we'll finish the last line or two of a short story and then just sit for a minute, quietly. Ideally, we'll ponder what we've just written or read; maybe our hearts or intellects will have been moved off the peg just a little from where they were before. Our body temperature will have gone up, or down, by a degree. Then, breathing evenly and steadily once more, we'll collect ourselves, writers and readers alike, get up, "created of warm blood and nerves" as a Chekhov character puts it, and go on to the next thing: Life. Always life.

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

Honey, no offense, but sometimes I think I could shoot you and watch you kick.

There's literary creation and literary business. When I first got something accepted, it gave my life a validation it didn't otherwise have.