It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.

He wondered if she wondered if he were watching her.

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

Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

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

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate.