The More Fiction You Read And Write,

Animals Don't Know As Much About Jealousy As People, But They're Not Ignorant Of It, Either.

I Think Uncertainty Is Good For Things. Certainty Breeds Complacency And Complacency Means That You Just Sit Somewhere In Your Nice Little Comfortable Suburban House In Michigan, Looking At Cnn And Saying, "oh, Those Poor Immigrant Children That Are All Coming Across The Border. But We Really Can't Have Them Here - That Isn't What God Wants. Let's Send Them All Back To The Drug Cartels." There's A Complacency To It.

I Believe These Stories Exist Because We Sometimes Need To Create Unreal Monsters And Bogies To Stand In For All The Things We Fear In Our Real Lives: The Parent Who Punches Instead Of Kissing, The Auto Accident That Takes A Loved One, The Cancer We One Day Discover Living In Our Own Bodies. If Such Terrible Occurrences Were Acts Of Darkness, They Might Actually Be Easier To Cope With. But Instead Of Being Dark, They Have Their Own Terrible Brilliance. . . And None Shine So Bright As The Acts Of Cruelty We Sometimes Perpetrate In Our Own Families.

Friends Come In And Out Of Our Lives, Like Busboys In A Restaurant.

When You Sit Down To Write, Write. Don't Do Anything Else Except Go To The Bathroom, And Only Do That If It Absolutely Cannot Be Put Off.