Using language like jungle growth isn't the solution to telling a story.

Our salvation never comes in the form we would have chosen.

Sometimes, in that darkness, there is a single act of love, some selfless gesture, an aspiration, and we see that it's not been all waste, all hopeless, and we can ... well ... go on.

Uninvited criticism is insult.

A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth.

Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery.

Let good people sin. Give virtue to rotters.

Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol.

Plot does not simply move with time, but spreads out conceptually in metaphorical space.

There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now."

What a strange thing it is to recognize a sound like the shriek of a wounded animal, when you've never heard the shriek of a wounded animal.

Practically speaking, there are for each one of us two supreme realities -- God and the soul. The heavens and the earth will pass away. But the soul will still remain, face to face with God.

The behavior of the crowd at Churchill Downs is like 100,000 vicious Hyenas going berserk all at once in a space about the size of a 777 jet or the White House lawn.

I don't believe in magic ... I don't believe in Jesus ... I don't believe in Buddha ... I don't believe in Elvis ... I don't believe in Beatles.

I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my devotion.

I've read short stories that are as dense as a 19th century novel and novels that really are short stories filled with a lot of helium.

Am I too early?" "No. He's waiting for you." The smile faded, to be replaced by a slightly disappointed expression. "I thought you'd be . . . scarier.

Probably the biggest compliment someone can give you is, "Gosh, you look great. You don't look tired."

Fue adondo a mi me perdieron quw logre por fin encontrarme? Was it where they lost me that I finally found myself?

It's not just the emotional, intellectual, and physical gaps between you and money. The real gap is always between what you think you want and what you actually want, deep down.

There is no actual stress or anxiety in the world, your thoughts create these false beliefs.