“I continued working without a break, but in the middle of the third story...I felt myself tiring more than if I had been working on a novel. The same thing happened with the fourth. In fact, I did not have the energy to finish them. Now I know why: The effort involved in writing a short story is as intense as beginning a novel, where everything must be defined in the first paragraph: structure, tone, style, rhythm, length, and sometimes even the personality of a character. All the rest is the pleasure of writing, the most intimate, solitary pleasure one can imagine, and if the rest of one's life is not spent correcting the novel, it is because the same iron rigor needed to begin the book is required to end it. But a story has no beginning, no end: Either it works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, my own experience, and the experience of others, shows that most of the time it is better for one's health to start again in another direction, or toss the story in the wastebasket. Someone, I don't remember who, made the point with this comforting phrase: "Good writers are appreciated more for what they tear up than for what they publish.”

“Then the writing became so fluid that I sometimes felt as if I were writing for the sheer pleasure of telling a story, which may be the human condition that most resembles levitation.”

“One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.”

“If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. ”

“I soaked the conversations up like a sponge, pulled them apart, rearranged them to make their origins disappear, and when I told them to the same people who had told the stories earlier, they were bewildered by the coincidence between what I said and what they were thinking.”

“1) I love you not for whom you are,but who i am when i'm by your side.2) No person deserves your tears,and who deserves them won't make you cry.3) Just because someone doesn't love you as you wish,it doesn't mean you're not loved with all his/her being.4) A true friend is the one,who hold your hand and touches your heart.5) The worst way to miss someone is,to be seated by him/her and know you'll never have him/her.6) Never stop smiling not even when you're sad,someone might fall in love with your smile.7) You may only be a person in this world,but for someone you're the world.8) Don't spend time with someone,who doesn't care spending it with you.9) Maybe God wants you to meet many wrong people,before you meet the right one,so when it happens you'll be thankful.10) Dont cry because it came to an end,smile because it happened.11) There will always be people who'll hurt you,so you need to continue trusting, just be careful.12) Become a better person and be sure to know who you are,before meeting someone new and hoping that person knows who you are.13) Don't struggle so much,best things happen when not expected.”

“Even when I don't have to write, I arrange it every morning with the pointless rigor that has made me lose so many lovers.”