I don't think there's a shortage of material in the world. Or in my head. I just pray for continued good health, because I've got other stories to tell.

I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid.

I think a lot of what is going on with kids who get pushed too far and attempt either murder or suicide is that they are trying to deal with their own non-existence for the people who are supposed to care most for them.

I looked back at some of my earlier published stories with genuine horror and remorse. I got thinking, How many extant copies might there be, who owns them, and do they keep their doors locked?

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

I want that which is hilarious and that which is heartbreaking to occupy the same territory in the book because I think they very often occupy the same territory in life, much as we try to separate them.

I think the darker aspect of my fiction-or anybody's fiction-is by its very nature somehow easier to talk about.

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

I don't think America has ever had a center the way London is the center of England or Dublin is the center of Ireland.