I was a garbage man in New Jersey in summers during college at Yale. Everybody else got to go to Switzerland and I got to go to the dump.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

Safe from the Neighbors is a novel of unusual richness and depth, one that's as wise about the small shocks within a marriage as it is about the troubled history of Mississippi. Steve Yarbrough is a formidably talented novelist, shuttling between the past and present with a grace that feels effortless.

I think I'm fascinated by the power of religion in our culture. Like a lot of secular, liberal people, I ignored it for a long time. Lately, of course, just from a political perspective, it's impossible to ignore.

There's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it.

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.