Ethan Canin

A ten- or twelve-page story seems too easy, which is a funny thing to say considering that writing a decent short story is devastatingly difficult. Yet it still seems easier than a novel. You can turn a short story on a single good line - ten pages of decent writing and one good moment. ”

When you're in medicine - especially when you're a resident in a public hospital - you feel like you're doing your part. But not when you're a writer. ”

In medical school, you're taught to write in this convoluted, Latinate way. I knew the vocabulary as well as anyone, but I would write kidney instead of nephric. I insisted on using English. ”

No one knows why books do well. ”

I no longer practice medicine, but I can say that, for me, medicine was easier - and certainly less emotionally turbulent - than writing. ”

I like medicine. Even if I was selling a million books a year, I would still be a doctor. ”

Feeling useful in medicine allows me to not feel so stupid when making up stories. ”

I don't have a pen name, so I'm thinking of getting a doctor's name. What would you call that, a stethoscope name? ”

I think one of the things that is essential for happiness in life, or at least for non-sadness, is producing something. I guess that's why I spend so much time and agony writing books. But working on carpentry is sort of like all the pleasure with none of the agony. ”

It's such a risk to write a novel that it's easy to become conservative - you're spending what would be, for me, a couple of years of my life on a single idea. Which is maybe one of the reasons I write stories - if it doesn't work, you've only lost a month. ”