Since each story presents its own technical problems, obviously one can't generalize about them on a two-times-two-equals-four basis. Finding the right form for your story is simply to realize the most natural way of telling the story. The test of whether or not a writer has defined the natural shape of his story is just this: After reading it, can you imagine it differently, or does it silence your imagination and seem to you absolute and final? As an orange is final. As an orange is something nature has made just right.

When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling around.

I also write the last paragraph or page of a story first. That way I always know what I'm working towards.

I told you: you can make yourself love anybody.

If you weren't here, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be, doing anything you wanted to do, where would you be and what would you be doing?

Hulga the whole while hollering like a half-slaughtered hog. (Attention, students of literature! Alliteration - have you noticed? - is my least vice.)

June, July, all through the warm months she hibernated like a winter animal who did not know spring had come and gone.