I think anything we do - eating, walking down the street, online shopping - gives you another perspective on writing stories.

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 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.

For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey between footsteps makes up our lives

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.

You look at any poetic creature: muslin, ether, demigoddess, millions of delights; then you look into the soul and find the most ordinary crocodile!

Statesman are suspected of plotting against mankind, rather than consulting their interests, and are esteemed more crafty than learned.

To me, jazz is a place where anything is possible.

The church is like a swimming pool. Most of the noise comes from the shallow end.

Whoever can lift a rifle, should have one.

The genius is a genius by the first look he casts on any object. Is his eye creative? Does he not rest in angles and colors, but beholds the design,--he will presently undervalue the actual object.