You don't need a dead father to explain a character's sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is - authorial intrusion.

There are many stories I've wanted to write that I'm simply not able to - sometimes I haven't found the way in yet, and it doesn't matter how hard I try.

There's definitely a magical quality to writing that can't be explained. I can write something I love in two days, or I can work on a story every day for months and it never comes together.

I've learned so much from my professors and have been fortunate to have had so many good ones, including Frederick and Steven Barthelme, Edward Carey, Jim Magnuson, and Elizabeth McCracken.

I want to be able to discuss craft but I also want to teach writers to trust their instincts and learn to listen to themselves above all others.

What is beautiful is goodand who is good will soon be beautiful.

The Saviour of the light liberates soul into the light.

Sometimes I think I could have got some better results if I had a different mentality; if I could have pushed hard and attacked. But then I would have had a good chance of making a mistake.

Short of baseball and my family, it was gaming. And gaming is a $20-million to $200-million multi-year effort. It's an insane, stupid and utterly irresponsible act. But I did it.

I’m scared of the future. I’m scared of the past. I’m nervous at the moment.

Defer not charities till death; for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own.

To be a 'believer' does not make you superior to others; but to be a 'humanist' does make it so!

Choosing to do what the Lord has defined as right will, in the long run, always lead to the best outcomes.

The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers.

If I cannot give consent to my own death, whose body is this? Who owns my life?