A collection, for me, is a book of very diverse stories that somehow speak to each other, across wide geography, across time, years, decades.

Actually, you’re not famous at all. Maybe you’ll get some traction after you’re dead?

I revise and revise and revise. I'm not even sure "revise" is the right word. I work a story almost to death before it's done.

I think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories.

I sometimes wonder if our memories are a myth. We think we remember, but we are remembering the story and not the actual event?

I agree with the Lev Tolstoy quote completely, but I also feel like there's more to it. What is a happy family and an unhappy family? We're probably both of those things at the same time.

A stellar, fully-realized collection of stories... grounded, wonderfully, in the river valleys of western Maine. You come away not only understanding a place but the soul of its people.

I've spent a lot of time in prisons, first doing legal work and later, teaching.

If a novel or a story works, you don't stop thinking about it; it doesn't truly end.

I have a friend who teaches yoga (or is it pilates?), and she said that I don't seem to live in the moment. And I said, "Exactly!" I'd go nuts if I lived in the moment.

I think some writers should wait for something to say.

People think that food cheers you up, that a doughnut cures all ills, but this only works for trivial complaints. When real disaster strikes, food chokes you.

You can't have occupation and human rights.

Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.

When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.

Look to the East, where up the lucid sky; the morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair.

The hypochondriac disease consists in indigestion and consequent flatulency, with anxiety or want of pleasurable sensation.

Qigong is a jewel that has many facets.

When I was nine, ten, I was super young, but I installed a program on my computer so I could start producing music.

But, by just being myself, I end up touching a lot more people who might never have paid much attention to a female rapper.

I want to see peace dancing in the heart of every human being.