There was no one, when I was in school, who talked about going in and blowing up students. The teachers were very stern and hateable, but nobody ever….

I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they're not. They're not out there….

When you're not involved, other people's unhappiness seems to be about the funniest damn thing on earth because you think you can solve it, that you ….

Some writers are curiously unmusical. I don't get it. I don't get them. For me, music is essential. I always have music on when I'm doing well. Writi….

I found out about reviews early on. They're mostly written by sad men on bad afternoons. That's probably why I'm less angry than some writers, who ar….

Whoever you are, be that person with all your might. Time goes by faster than we thought. It is a thief so quiet. You must let yourself be loved and ….

Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to….

I always intended to be light and open. I misjudged the American audience..

The first two drinks were always wonderfully liberating. You think better. You're braver, and you'll say anything. If you could just hang in there wi….

My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all..

Literature is the history of the soul..

What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is... We are all overbrained and overemotioned..

The Deep South might be wretched, but it can howl..

I do believe that as you write more and age, the arrogance and most of the vanity goes. Or it is a vanity met with vast gratitude, that you were hit ….

I wouldn't buy somebody's album on a dare if they called him a musician's musician. I don't write to be a writer's writer. I don't want to be like th….

I don't really believe in a creative-writing major as an undergraduate. It's a bad idea, terrible. I've met creative-writing majors from other places….

The wild stuff is all so overrated. Drinking, you don't feel good all the time. There's a lot of down, a lot of misery..

I never pulled a loaded pistol on anybody, but it got around that I did. It got turned into lore. It's a myth. There's so much bad gun stuff..

Where is the angry machine of all of us? Why is God such a blurred magician? Why are you begging for your life if you believe those things? Prove to ….

I don't really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way..

Love and despair go hand in hand..