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.

I've spent so many years living in one place and imaging another.

To Avoid Self Destruction Is Not To Be Grouped Through Life By Pursuing Education Alone

We were created to be productive

[Bill] Binney designed ThinThread, an NSA program that used encryption to try to make mass surveillance less objectionable. It would still have been unlawful and unconstitutional.

If you're interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the door to your own secret self.

Intercession is more than specific: it is pondered: it requires us to bear on our heart the burden of those for whom we pray.

In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue.

Britney Spears is definitely my favorite past Candie's girl; her campaigns were gorgeous.

In politics evils should be remedied not revenged.

Reading is like breathing in, writing is like breathing out.

There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold.