When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever

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

There's a joy in writing short stories, a wonderful sense of reward when you pull certain things off.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

The human heart is a dark forest.

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.

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