We don't want emotion handed to us - that's not emotion. You have to build and come from the reader's soul.

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.

In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm.

Think, talk, and walk like you matter.

Every person has a revolution beating within his or her chest

And just as it is with all proper grannies, she ordered me into my pink bunny jammies.

Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.

Music was my whole life, not a career. It definitely was never easy... Still isn't.

The past is gone. I know it sounds cliché, but you're here. Like be in it. And boxing was a really good analogy for me to try and carry that in my everyday life all the time.

A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.

Change can't be made within panic

Imagery is the most important to me when singing stories. I try to paint pictures with the words and decorate with little to no singing....let the song do the work.