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.

We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of the meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will be tragic and the meatloaf man will not come anymore.

The human heart is a dark forest.

Work for most people is really very social, and the actual thinking is often done in community.

One can imagine a world without essays. It would be a little poorer, of course, like a world without chess, but one could live in it.

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

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