I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.

I am a cigarette with a body attached to it

What good are insights? They only make things worse.

A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.

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

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