I want to be able to discuss craft but I also want to teach writers to trust their instincts and learn to listen to themselves above all others.

There are many stories I've wanted to write that I'm simply not able to - sometimes I haven't found the way in yet, and it doesn't matter how hard I try.

There's definitely a magical quality to writing that can't be explained. I can write something I love in two days, or I can work on a story every day for months and it never comes together.

I've learned so much from my professors and have been fortunate to have had so many good ones, including Frederick and Steven Barthelme, Edward Carey, Jim Magnuson, and Elizabeth McCracken.

You don't need a dead father to explain a character's sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is - authorial intrusion.

Don't wait until there is tragedy in your life. Don't wait until you lose somebody. Don't wait until it's too late. Appreciate the beautiful people that you have in your life now.

Guys like you can't escape the city. Hell, you a got a blood contract with this place. You're married to the old girl.

I can certainly sympathize with writers who don't want to put themselves or their loved ones at risk.

It is good a philosopher should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity.

I was never very happy at school.

There are no people on earth in whom a spirit of enthusiastic zeal is so readily kindled, and burns so remarkably, as Americans

Bad men do what good men only dream.

The most I've spent on shoes were a pair from Kurt Geiger for £250.

True art takes note not merely of form but also of what lies behind.

A healthy strong ego, with plenty of self-esteem, does not feel itself threatened by every innocent remark.