Maybe every couple lived in the gaps between conversations, unable to say the important things for fear they had already been said, or couldn't be sa….

Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier y….

A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.” Alvis finished his wine. “You h….

I wake at 5 or 5:30 most mornings, make myself a latte and grab a cookie, write until 10 or 11, go have my favorite meal, 'second breakfast,' or grab….

I don't know a family that isn't touched by some sort of addiction..

All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believ….

His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about..

I think so, too. I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. B….

This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life..

Who isn't crazy sometimes? Who hasn't driven around a block hoping a certain person will come out; who hasn't haunted a certain coffee shop, or stare….

If a police officer arrests a mime, does he need to tell him he has the right to remain silent..

Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life--not….

I realized the structure in a collection is how they're put together. Structuring the collection became the art of it for me. Because the stories had….

Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, a….

There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of….

The neighborhoods I grew up in were poor and full of drug users. I don't think you have to look that hard to find those kinds of lives. But I also do….

Stories are people. I'm a story, you're a story ... your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we're lucky, our sto….

The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25..

Maybe it's ALWAYS the end of the world. Maybe you're alive for a while, and then you realize you're going to die, and that's such an insane thing to ….

He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choo….

I'm certainly eclectic in my writing..