My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired.

There are a great many sins in this world, none of them original.

It's no secret that in my books I'm trying to make the comic and the serious rub up against each other just as closely and uncomfortably as I can.

People in small towns, much more than in cities, share a destiny.

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

If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life.

Who but an English professor would threaten to kill a duck a day and hold up a goose as an example?