Work saved me. Literature saved me. It sounds corny but it's absolutely true. I was going in the wrong direction, but after the 9,000th night at the bar doing dope with a bunch of Dead Heads, I began to think there was something more.

But then, that's the beauty of writing stories-each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there's no feeling like it.

I'm extremely worried. I'm worried about the survival of our species, worried about what we're doing, worried about being Americans, worried about depletion of resources. On the other hand, we are trying. We are trying to understand our impact on the environment.

A glad zest and hopefulness might be inspired even in the most jaded and ennui-cursed, were there in our homes such simple, truthful natures as that of my heroine, and it is in the sphere of quiet homes-not elsewhere-I believe that a woman can best rule and save the world.

I think it's a great thing to hear the author reading. I've listened to CDs of Cheever and Updike reading their stories and Hemingway. To hear what their voices were like is amazing. Whether they're reading well or not, it's great to listen to the intonation and the beat of the guy who wrote the story.

Pleasure, I remind myself, is inseparable from its lawfully wedded mate, pain.

I'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write stories in another period. I only work on one thing at once, because I'm afraid that I wouldn't finish what I'd started.