A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we're losing part of ourselves.

One of the odd things about middle age, he concluded, was the strange decisions a man discovers he's made by not really making them, like allowing friends to drift away through simple neglect.

Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say, "I know you, Al. You are not the kind of man who.

I was the one who did come through that door. You were the one she was waiting for.

I think it would be harder for me not to write comedy because the comic view of things is the one that comes most naturally to me.

I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've got other stories to tell.