Alice Munro is a particular kind of short story writer in that she writes long, character-driven short stories.

It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.

I can't listen to music when I'm writing. I like music best in a car or on the train.

I think that the practice of writing every day was what made me remember that writing doesn't have anything to do with publishing books. It can be totally separate and private - a comforting thought.

I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.

In America you make your plans and then they happen.

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a few unusual writers can make something great without that.

I think, in general, it's better not to respond to reviews of your work.

I like it when someone gives me a new book of poetry by a poet I haven't read.

Research for fiction is a funny thing: you go looking for one piece of information, and find something altogether different.

If somebody says your story is only published because you look nice in the photo, that maybe spurs you on to write.

He had learned Lesson One: Let French women tell you what they want.

We begin as dupes and end as scoundrels.

Getting your education is an advantage you have.

You've got to believe in the possibilities. You've got to believe that tomorrow can be better than today. And here's the big one. Believe in yourself.

Of course I wanted children. Bright, gorgeous, loving children. I could almost see them.

Chess, like any creative activity, can exist only through the combined efforts of those who have creative talent, and those who have the ability to organize their creative work

A cardio-funk class - I should have at least taken one of those. But it's always terrified me. I'm never one to be a dancer on the dance floor, even at a bar or a club.

I found that in a perverse way our culture and parents are far more comfortable talking about girls' vicitimization than girls' sexual agency.

When you know who you are and what you stand for, you stand in wisdom.

When you give a lesson in meanness to a critter or a person, don't be surprised if they learn their lesson.