Only the foolish, blinded by language's conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it's melancholy rim, green in it's envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it's greatest rages,...
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...
Maybe the price of forgetting that even in America, even in New York City, when a man back home is talking, you better listen closely.
For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed an...
Sometimes I help him out and sometimes he helps me out, and sometimes he tries to push me through the wall. (Dark City Lights)
A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.
She shuffled with her head bowed, her dark eyes drifting to avoid contact, and she screamed in bed at night. (Dark City Lights)
Maybe the price of forgetting that even in America, even in New York City, when a man from back home is talking, you better listen closely. (Dark City Lights)
A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to writ...
She had come to understand that American parenting was a juggling of anxieties, and that it came with having too much food: a sated belly gave Americans time to worry that their child might have a rar...
You can take the barbarian out of the tavern, but he can take the blood out of your body.
It was one of those situations I often find myself in while traveling. Something's said by a stranger I've been randomly thrown into contact with, and I want to say, Listen. I'm with you on most of th...
How Are We to Live is a collection of short stories, not a novel. This in itself is a disappointment. It seems to diminish the book’s authority, making the author seem like somebody who is just hangin...
For the source of the short story is usually lyrical. And all writers speak from, and speak to, emotions eternally the same in all of us: love, pity, terror do not show favorites or leave any of us ou...
A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
Short stories are often treated as the poor cousins of novels.
We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do -- we do it all the time.
When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.
A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.
Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.
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