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.

Like so many writers I started writing stories because I didn't have much time for anything else.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

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.

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

I love Chekhov. I could go on all day about him.

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.