“For me, writing a short story is much, much harder than writing a novel.”

“A good short-story writer has an instinct for sketching in just enough background to ground the specific story.”

“But hell, I do like to write letters. Much easier than writing books.”

“Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down. ”

“So I write mainly for the fun of it, the hell of it, the duty of it. I enjoy writing and will probly be a scribbler on my dying day, sprawled on some stony trail halfway between two dry waterholes.”

“I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.”

“I guess life is like a novel. Some of it is written by fate, some of it is written by God... but the part we are ultimately judged by is the part we write ourselves.”