Maybe the hardest lesson is the one I have to learn over and over again, that each story is its own animal, that every story I write is going to come only with difficulty.

Donkeys are the most misunderstood and abused animals around the world.

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I've been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I've been pretty lucky.

My donkeys are Jack and Don Quixote. They're very smart, very cautious. Much of what people consider stubbornness in donkeys is actually cautiousness.

As a writer, I can live somewhat independently, occupying nooks and crannies and finding meaning there. I can even live in my mind a good portion of most days.

A mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you're finished, it's really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.

That's where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and '50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal.

I have a second-degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo weapons training.

Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar.

I grew up with donkeys, as well as horses, but I'm more interested in donkeys.

Know this: whenever you think of leaving, a part of you has already left. But it’s never too late to get it back.

Confidence matters a lot than what you want to say, if you are not bold enough.

He had not escaped the guilt, nor forgotten it, but how pale it seemed in light of all he had suffered for love of his brother and his brother's wife in these past few years.

We have got to dispel this myth that bullying is just a normal rite of passage.

Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.

I recognized that the kiss was a door I had walked through.

Silence kills scandal.

I’ve never considered joining Twitter, nor do I know why anybody would.

I go on living, more from force of habit than anything else.

A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.