I tend to listen to my friends and family empathetically, and I try to help work through their problems from the inside. I try to adopt their thinking.

Susan Rebecca White has a keen sense for how her characters talk and think. An impressive debut.

Of course I'd sometimes have characters from downstate living upstate, but it took a while for me to start writing about where I grew up.

When I teach, I try to assign writers from whom I can learn.

I'll write about California someday, I imagine, but I don't know when.

I think it's probably better to make a region your own, and then maybe you can go somewhere else, but a lot of great writers have stuck to one region.

I believe that we can access stories, and voices from those around us, more easily often than from our own imperfect memories.

I think narrators expect a high level of intimacy with their readers, and vice versa.

I think the voice can carry a story.

I'm always relearning things I thought I'd learned for good a while back.

I'm suspicious of epiphanies, because they so rarely last.

The best way to love a woman is to let her bloom like a flower so that you can enjoy her beauty without plucking her petals.

Dependency on stuff, on people and on things is one of the greatest things that could kill.

The wise will hide your follies and help you learn, but the wicked ones will gossip about it with scoundrels.

My goal is to be one with the music. I just dedicate my whole life to this art.

I feel fortunate about being able to make the music I want to make and getting away with it

For I am the size of what I see / not my height's size.

I mean, anything that money can be made off will never be a problem to make, no matter what it is.

An urgent missive sent to Josephine Home in three days. Don't wash.

When the ball is on the one-yard line, never risk a fumble. Carry it over yourself.

The old story is a story of measurement. And the New Story is to bring measurement and meaning together. You cannot measure meaning.