A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.

I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.

Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

Delia's arms were inscribed with a grid of self- inflicted wounds, an intricate text of self-loathing

There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention.

I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university.

If it's red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that's left in the vase after the flowers have died and rotted, it's probably Burgundy.

Reading a novel is just a much more involving and intimate experience than the act of watching a film. I mean, you literally get inside of a novelist's head, and you invest many hours to do so.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

The road itself tells us far more than signs do.

At the sight of Day, her whole face lit up. "Mikhail! You came! Barbara said you would, but that we might have to wait for hell to freeze over first. Did it?

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo.

Have you no morals, man?' 'Can't afford them,Governor.

Our accomplishments show what kind of people we are.

Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.

Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

I believe that people should take pride in what they do, even if it is scorned or misunderstood by the public at large.

There's lots of people - this town wouldn't hold them; Who don't know much excepting what's told them.