Elizabeth McCracken

I have a memory of my fourth-grade self wanting to be the first woman president of the United States, but I think that has a lot more to do with my love of world records and reference books than a love of serving my country. ”

Life likes jokes; life is constantly making jokes, even at the most inopportune moments. ”

There was a time in my life when I wasn't sure I'd ever write a short story again because I had started writing novels, and I am fundamentally a lazy person, and the fact is that a novel is a lazy person's form, really. That is, you can amble; you can digress. ”

I wanted to acknowledge that life goes on but that death goes on, too. A person who is dead is a long, long story. ”

In the last century, I earned my living as a librarian, and I loved it. I'd have to take some classes to get up to speed with 21st-century librarianship. ”

When it comes to other people's writing, my older influences are more powerful than more recent ones, partially because I'm now more worried that I'll suddenly accidentally steal something from another writer. ”

You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and I'm speaking of life, not writing - is 'no humor too black.' ”

Humor reminds you, when you're flattened by sorrow, that you're still human. ”

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor. ”

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then you're trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what you're writing into relief so that you can actually see it. ”