For Years And Years I Thought That

For Years And Years I Thought That Stories Were Just Practice, Till I Got Time To Write A Novel.

Peoples Lives, In Jubilee As Elsewhere, Were Dull, Simple, Amazing, Unfathomable-deep Caves Paved With Kitchen Linoleum. . . . What I Wanted [to Write Down] Was Every Last Thing, Every Layer Of Speech And Thought, Stroke Of Light On Bark Or Walls, Every Smell, Pothole, Pain, Crack, Delusion, Held Still And Held Together-radiant, Everlasting.

I Sit Watching The Brown Oceanic Waves Of Dry Country Rising Into The Foothills And I Weep Monotonously, Seasickly. Life Is Not Like The Dim Ironic Stories I Like To Read, It Is Like A Daytime Serial On Television. The Banality Will Make You Weep As Much As Anything Else.

Never Underestimate The Meanness In People's Souls... Even When They're Being Kind... Especially When They're Being Kind.

I Want My Stories To Be Something About Life That Causes People To Say, Not, Oh, Isn't That The Truth, But To Feel Some Kind Of Reward From The Writing, And That Doesn't Mean That It Has To Be A Happy Ending Or Anything, But Just That Everything The Story Tells Moves The Reader In Such A Way That You Feel You Are A Different Person When You Finish.