What you can do with a short story that you can't do with a novel is punch someone in the gut, in the best of ways.

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.

The ocean does not lose its splendor because it lost a few drops.

The wealth of nations is men not silk and cotton and gold.

One thing that you consistently see everywhere is that the poor and the under-represented are always the ones who are going to suffer the most and get the short end of the stick.

Character is more than a man-to-his-God humility, for it involves transparency and accountability to others, not merely a private quest for purity.

Jericho Barrons was my poison now.

There are some duties we owe even to those who have wronged us. There is, after all, a limit to retribution and punishment.

Think of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. They used the same actors over and over again.

I'd give dollar for indefinite article.

There are no impediments to meditation. The very thought of such obstacles is the greatest impediment.

Men will die for an opinion as soon as for anything else.