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.

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 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 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.

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.

In order for your dream to come into manifestation, you must first repeatedly envision its possibility in your mental imagination.

I'm awful at hiding it when I'm miserable. Sometimes I think if I were better at it maybe I'd be able to fool myself. Trick the misery right out of me.

Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before reaching forty.

I think that as I continue to write, my writing I hope will become more controversial and more provocative.

In a litigation-happy society, clear agreements often prevent small disagreements from becoming big ones.

Never worry about anything that is past. Charge it up to experience and forget the trouble. There are always plenty of troubles ahead, so don't turn and look back on any behind you.

As soon as you go into any biological process in any real detail, you discover it's open-ended in terms of what needs to be found out about it.

I like both Blu-ray and DVD, but Blu-ray gives you more options.

I gave it my body and mind, but I have kept my soul.

There is a Soul within the Soul. Seek it out. There is a Treasure in your mountain. Seek it Out. A mystic in motion, if that's what you are, don't seek out there; seek inside.