I try not to read my own books just because I would rather read somebody else.

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?

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.

Often-times, grass was more useful than gold. Man was more desirable than a beast. Chance was more seductive than knowledge, and eternal life was completely meaningless without love.

Sometimes in life we must slowly distant ourselves from people and places we feel unconformable. Don't feel bad feel freedom.

Dinner-parties bore us because our imagination is absent, and reading interests us because it is keeping us company.

What Britain needs is an iron lady.

The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project.

Save your tears, you've got years.

Clothes by a man who doesn't know women, never had one, and dreams of being one!

The good news is" he paused, carefully choosing his words, "I kissed you, and you're still here.

When sincerity fails, the offer of money usually works.

Better the pride that resides as a citizen of the world than a pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled