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

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.

You felt it as a depth of ease in certain boys, their innate, affable assurance that they would not have to struggle for a place in the world; that is already reserved for them.

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.

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

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.

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