To write a short story, you have to be able to stay up all night.

Your numbness is something perhaps you cannot help. It is what the world has done to you. But your coldness. That is what you do to the world.

This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.

For love to last, you had to have illusions or have no illusions at all. But you had to stick to one or the other. It was the switching back and forth that endangered things.

Usually she ordered a cup of coffee and a cup of tea, as well as a brownie, propping up her sadness with chocolate and caffeine so that it became an anxiety.

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.

One had to build shelters. One had to make pockets and live inside them.

They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.

The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father. And you know what they say? I could never do that!'

She was unequal to anyone's wistfulness. She had made too little of her life. Its loneliness shamed her like a crime.

If one publishes, then one is creating a public record of Learning to Write.

See me just as I see you.

You can't change anyone else, but people do change in relationship to your change.

Hang sorrow, care'll kill a cat.

My first gig was in Philadelphia and I played the drums for my older brothers. That same night, I also played drums for Martha and the Vandellas. Ah, the fond memories of being 14.

I've learned that sometimes when people don't like what you have to say, and don't want to debate you on ideas, it's just easier to call you a dumb blonde from Fox News.

Who lacks confidence speaks lies more readily.

Smart people in rural areas, the handicapped, people looking for companionship, they love it. But you have to be highly motivated to get on and learn to use it.

You make me understand how wonderful it is for little lizards when they find that one special rock that's perfect for sunning themselves on. You make me lizard-happy.

Only if God can say things that make you struggle will you know that you have met a real God and not a figment of your imagination.

Maybe tomorrow when He looks down Every green field and every town All of his children every nation There'll be peace and good, brotherhood... Crystal blue persuasion.