The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing.

Maturity, as I conceived it, was recognizing what was bad or peculiar in life, admitting it has to stay that way, and going ahead with the best of things.

I wouldn't be a very good writer if someone hadn't taught me how to read.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

Maybe I'm a serial regional writer. First here, then there, across the map.

I think that's the thing that memoir can do more than anything it does; it testifies and bears witness to the existence of people whose lives, pleasures and virtues would never have been testified to without my having done it. That makes me really glad.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.