Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

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.

One of the last courses I taught was on the Russian short story, which I love.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

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

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.