Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories - and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories..

She was learning, quite late, what many people around her appeared to have known since childhood that life can be perfectly satisfying without major ….

One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discolor everything like a drop of black ink in white milk..

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations..

Never underestimate the meanness in people's souls... Even when they're being kind... especially when they're being kind..

I want my stories to be something about life that causes people to say, not, oh, isn't that the truth, but to feel some kind of reward from the writi….

People have thoughts they’d sooner not have. It happens in life..

I don't always, or even usually, read stories from beginning to end. I start anywhere and proceed in either direction. A story is not like a road to ….

A story is not like a road to follow... it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where….

Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind. When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened i….

One stroke of lightning does not have to lead anywhere, but to the next stroke of lightning..

people who believe in miracles do not make much fuss when they actually encounter one.

Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later..

Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you..

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are..

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time..

Writing is hard, but the more you write, and enjoy what you write, the better it gets..

Hatred is always a sin, my mother told me. Remember that. One drop of hatred in your soul will spread and discolor everything like a drop of black in….

The images, the language, of pornography, and romance are alike; monotonous and mechanically seductive, quickly leading to despair..

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel..

People are curious. A few people are. ... They will put things together, knowing all along that they may be mistaken. You see them going around with ….