You can be interested in a Jane Smiley novel whether or not anyone says a word. She enters into her characters' thoughts with great understanding and depth.

Some authors have a very hard time understanding that in order to be faithful to the spirit of the book, it's almost always impossible to remain faithful to the text. You have to make changes.

America has always been a nation of small places, and as we lose them, we're losing part of ourselves.

I've never written nearly as much about place as people seem to think I do. I just write about class.

What's cool is when you're able to give your audience imagination and you don't have to cage them in like animals.

To say that creative writing courses are all useless is almost as silly as saying all editors are useless. Writers of all levels can benefit from other instructive voices.

I use so much of myself in everything I do. I think every actor does because you have no one else to go to but yourself and your own imagination.

Being scared is really a good thing. It's being scared of being scared that's bad. Being scared of walking through your fear, going to a place of true creativity - that's what an artist is, that's what he does. If you do that, then being inspired by your contemporaries or people from the past is really great.