Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself..

I prefer short stories, but publishers would, of course, rather that writers produce novels, since novels are still more commercially viable..

Everybody should customize their names..

The problem with love and God, the two of them, is how to say anything about them that doesn’t annihilate them instantly with the wrong words, with u….

I feel quite at home writing short stories but nervous and anxious when writing novels, as if the bad time of consecutive failures might arise again..

There's nothing to talk about to strangers anymore, if you know what I mean. Everything I want to say, I say to her..

It's my feeling that any writer can get an emotion into a story without being sentimental as long as the emotion is dealt with honestly, with suffici….

You think that what I've told you is an anecdote. But really it isn't. It's my whole life. It's the only story I have..

[T]he astonishing purity of pain, how it will not be mixed with any other sensation..

When you break the heart of the philosopher, you must apply great force and cunning strategy, but when the deed is completed, the heart lies in great….

What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice does….

It's better to be nominated for awards than not to be nominated for them, but of course to some degree such awards [National Book Award] are always s….

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that..

Try to get your characters into interesting trouble. Allow your characters to misbehave. Let them stay out after 11..

I don't think that most women have to prove that they're real women. You live long enough, you graduate to being real..

When blame has been assigned, the story is over..

When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imagin….

The worst mistakes I've made have been the ones directed by sweet-natured hopefulness..

At least with pets, and for all I know, people too, intelligence and quick-wittedness have nothing to do with a talent for being loved, or being kind….

You know, there's something heartsick about parties like this. Look at us. We're all pretending to be smart, as if intelligence were the cure for our….

My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads..