I try to help people become the best possible editors of their own work, to help them become conscious of the things they do well, of the things they need to look at again, of the wells of material they have not even begun to dip their buckets into.

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

I teach one semester a year, and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester, a writing workshop for older students in their late 20s and early 30s, people in our graduate program who are already working on a manuscript and trying to bring it to completion.

There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

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.

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