New York Is An Ugly City, A

Stories Are Like Assholes. Everybody's Got One And Most Of 'em Stink.

Ideas Come To People Who Are Receptive To Them.

Everybody's Weird, Fundamentally Everybody Is A Snap. Sometimes It's A Sexual Thing And Sometimes It's A Different Kind Of Weirdness, But One Way Or Another Everybody's Nuts.

The Short Story, I Should Point Out, Is Perforce A Labor Of Love In Today's Literary World; There's Precious Little Economic Incentive To Write One.

One Thing That Helps Is To Give Myself Permission To Write Badly. I Tell Myself That I'm Going To Do My Five Or 10 Pages No Matter What, And That I Can Always Tear Them Up The Following Morning If I Want. I'll Have Lost Nothing-writing And Tearing Up Five Pages Would Leave Me No Further Behind Than If I Took The Day Off.