I do believe we are actors in our own dramas, which, moment by moment, we ourselves write; that we are characters in our own fictions or those devised for us by someone or something else.

A first-person voice helps to ensure the uniformity and cohesiveness of the narrative; it gathers unto itself incidents and characters in its unstoppable progress toward the story's end.

I don't know about ground rules; but I create the world that arrives with the characters or situation or voice in my head that instigates the piece, whatever form it may take.

My fondness for extended monologue might have been encouraged by two decades of writing stage and radio dramas.

I tell myself that, regardless of what source I draw on, I'm writing a new work for reasons peculiar to me and not an adaptation, and so feel, in the end, justified in singing it my way.

Eventually, I came to believe, stupidly, that I had exhausted that story's "original" form with its single use. I went on to other stories, other forms and genres.

I admitted that I did not understand life. What I meant was that I am bewildered by human hearts and motivations, including my own.

I very much like the idea of the unreliable narrator. Shaping my fictions as monologues - by introducing the "I" - allows me to be as unreliable as I like.

For me, fiction's great gift - to writer and reader, alike - is freedom.

I'm too ambitious to give another man credit, even if that other man is only myself in disguise.

When I was awarded a fellowship in poetry by the National Endowment for the Arts (for "Alphabets"), I felt myself suddenly (vaingloriously) equal to my Crow, which would be - I knew at once - Rat.

What did you do before?” “I used to run a lot.”“Cross country? Track?”“From the cops, actually.

And on the days I couldn't breathe, I learned to paint air.

Many times people will ask themselves, "where do I fit in?" This is my answer: You have the ability to fit where ever you are meant to be.

The relationship I have with my Hispanic fans is very deep and intricate.

Your characters have to remain innocent of what your picture is after.

Happiness is for those who don't really need it. So I can live without happiness.

All life is a struggle for existence. Why should it cease to be a struggle if it spreads among the stars?

I never knew a man could tell so many lies, he had a different story for every set of eyes. How can he remember who he's talking to?

I didn't write because in the corps I took mining engineering of all things and, you know, they, they graduate a mining engineer as a sort of an illiterate.

The public for which masterpieces are intended is not of this earth.