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.

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?

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.

I believe that we are always attracted to what we need most an instinct leading us towards the persons who are to open new vistas in our lives and fill them with new knowledge.

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

It was at once a miracle and the most natural thing in the world.

Ambition is the great fire, it's the liberator of the unconscious person. No goals, no growth; no clarity, no change.

No man is a man unless to his woman he is a pioneer.

Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all.

Football isn't necessarily won by the best players. It's won by the team with the best attitude.

As a kid, I loved to play centerfield. I loved to make diving catches.

Every day can be like Christmas in its love and its peace if our hearts open up and make room for love. The holy child is waiting to be born in every instant, not just once a year.