That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form.

It's possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things-- a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring-- with immense, even startling power. It is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader's spine-- the source of artistic delight, as Nabokov would have it. That's the kind of writing that most interests me.

I guess my writing has changed as my life has.

In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldnt turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now.

Writers will be judged by what they write.

Anyone can express himself or herself, but what writers and poets want to do in their work, more than simply express themselves, is communicate.

You have to have been in love to write poetry.

A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.