To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence.

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

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.

You have to be kind of clued into them, they are a world of their own, and most people find them disappointing because the best short stories are not constructed like novels.

A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life.

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

Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he'd led his boys to consider the folly of obsession with purity - its roots sunk deep in pride, flowering condemnation and violence against others and self.