The Artist’s Job, I Think, Is To

You Don't Want To Spend Your Life Writing About Stuff That Doesn't Matter. You Want To Try To Pull Out Of The Temporal Mediocre And Write In A Way That Is Meaningful To Everybody. This Goes Back To This Idea Of Being Intimate With Your Reader. Since We're All Down Here And We're All Dying And Aspiring And Loving And Feeling Inadequate, All These Things That We All Are Doing All The Time, What A Relief It Is, When Somebody Looks At You And Says, "yeah, Me Too."

I Am Always Considering The Reader. Although This Is Admittedly Kind Of Odd: Which Reader? On What Day? In What Mood? For Me, That "reader" Is Actually Just Me, If I Had Never Read The Story Before.

What I Regret Most In My Life Are Failures Of Kindness. Those Moments When Another Human Being Was There, In Front Of Me, Suffering, And I Responded . . . Sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

When You Read A Short Story, You Come Out A Little More Aware And A Little More In Love With The World Around You. What I Want Is To Have The Reader Come Out Just 6 Percent More Awake To The World.

He Was A Father. That's What A Father Does.eases The Burdens Of Those He Loves. Saves The Ones He Loves From Painful Last Images That Might Endure For A Lifetime.