As I drift back into sleep, I can't help thinking that it's a wonderful thing to be right about the world. To weigh the evidence, always incomplete, ….

Not everyone writes well from a child's point of view..

A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've alwa….

America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we're losing part of ourselves..

Some authors have a very hard time understanding that in order to be faithful to the spirit of the book, it's almost always impossible to remain fait….

If there's an enduring theme in my work, it's probably the effects of class on American life..

Was anything in the world truer than that intuitive leap of the heart?.

People who imagine themselves to be self-made seldom enjoy examining the process of manufacture in detail..

A lot of my characters in all of my books have a self-destructive urge. They'll do precisely the thing that they know is wrong, take a perverse delig….

I was pretty dead set against ever writing an academic novel. It's always been my view that there are already more than enough academic novels and th….

Steve Yarbrough's Safe from the Neighbors will take your breath away. Ambitious, funny, sad, smart, and beautifully crafted, it's everything a novel ….

I'll tell you one thing, though. It's a terrible thing to be a disappointment to a good woman..

People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny..

And there comes a time in your life when you realize that if you don't take the opportunity to be happy, you may never get another chance again..

I suppose all writers worry about the well running dry..

If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and….

Knowing and knowing what to do about it were two different things..

Sleep is over-rated. Have you ever noticed how it's always recommended to people anybody with half a brain can see need to wake up?.

I get and read an enormous number of first novels..

I’ve always known that there’s more going on inside me than finds its way into the world, but this is probably true of everyone. Who doesn’t regret t….

I just have this feeling that if it weren't for the Gloversville Free Library that I probably would not be a writer..