Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing.

I love Chekhov. I could go on all day about him.

There’s no right way to tell all stories, only the right way to tell a particular story.

But as my brother was doing his research for a book about my father, it became his opinion that the most influential anti-semitism my father encountered when he was growing up was from Jews, because his relatives were German Jews, and doctors.

It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.

But a lot of writers - and I'm one of them - do tend to feel dissatisfied. It makes you a little hard to live with, but it's a goad and does keep you alert and restless.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.