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

When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves - never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than a common murderer, who at least cuts your throat himself, without persuading YOU to do it.

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

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

I have never been able to understand the complaint that a story is "depressing" because of its subject matter. What depresses me are stories that don't seem to know these things go on, or hide them in resolute chipperness; "witty stories," in which every problem is the occasion for a joke; "upbeat" stories that flog you with transcendence. Please. We're grown ups now.

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

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