It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.
I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.
Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.
What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.
A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

























