The single biggest reason I got my stories taken in various literary magazines - and I want to stress this - is because I refused to give up. Period.

The answer is that we don't choose our freaks, they choose us.

I happen to love football so much and hate myself for loving it.

I do think, as crazy as it sounds, that sports is an addiction and that it should be accorded some of the same supports as any other addiction.

To look at the work of your peers, and learn how to explain with kindness and precision, the nature of their mistakes is, in fact, how you learn to diagnose your own work.

Much as I love stories, I think I'll only be satisfied with myself as a writer if I'm able to produce a novel that feels publishable. The books that truly take me away - for weeks at a time - are all novels.

All language is an aspiration to music.