My Best Stories Come Out Of Nowhere,

Some Writers Are Curiously Unmusical. I Don't Get It. I Don't Get Them. For Me, Music Is Essential. I Always Have Music On When I'm Doing Well. Writing And Music Are Two Different Mediums, But Musical Phrases Can Give You Sentences That You Didn't Think You Ever Had.

I Don't Really Believe In A Creative-writing Major As An Undergraduate. It's A Bad Idea, Terrible. I've Met Creative-writing Majors From Other Places And They Don't Know A Goddamn Thing. They're The Worst Students. They Just Think They're Good Because They Could Pass.

I Was Always Kind Of Florid. And Full Of Rhetoric. That Was My Flaw. My Whole Time Writing, I've Had To Work Against That Because It Can Be A Wrecking Posture.

I Hate To Be Fatalistic About It, But Alcoholism, It's Just In Your Genes. We Had Some Of It In My Family, And It Just Got Me.

You Need To See A Bit Of Hell Now And Then. That, And Great Joy.