Whatever one may say about the perils of workshops, they help writers internalize an awareness of audience.

Before I got my present job, I spent many years teaching writing part-time, so-called, at community colleges and universities. It's academia's version of migrant labor.

You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.

Peculiar as I was, and remain, I was trained to be practical. I'm still amazed at the radical temerity of my friends, you included, Julie, who choose poetry as their vocation. I envy your faith.

I loved short stories, and they were all I wanted to write. I love the compression of them and the exactitude needed to get a whole world into such a small space.

I figured that to be a writer I would need to have been born in the nineteenth century, be British, or have three names. So I turned my sights elsewhere . . . to acting.

Unless you're Stephen King or Joyce Carol Oates, no one's going to recognize you on the street, and you're promoting your book, not yourself.

Whatever we know as children, this is the world, eaten whole and without question.

Le livre est un morceau de silence dans les mains du lecteur. Celui qui écrit se tait. Celui qui lit ne rompt pas le silence.

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take.

I come from an Irish Catholic family, and hell-raising is part of the DNA.

Don't give up your dreams.

The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it.

In terms of jobs, I'm an actor. There's gotta' be depth there. I'd never say yes to something just to play the hot guy. That's not what I'm interested in.

Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated

I'm happy to work. I know things have changed recently, but I tend to prefer film. I don't know what it is.

To know God and to live is the same thing. God is Life.

Don't do anything as an individual that will make you stand out from your teammates.