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.

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.

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

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

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.

Reasons always came with a purpose, to give the appearance of a struggle between principle and desire. Principle had power only until you found what you had to have.

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