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A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

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When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not...more

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It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel i...more

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Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, th...more

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How language is webbed in the senses. Out of sand-blazed brilliance into quirky minds such as his, into touch, taste and fragrance. He thought he'd li...more

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What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

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And you can glance out the window for a moment, distracted by the sound of small kids playing a made-up game in a neighbor's yard, some kind of kickba...more

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It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, ...more

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The letters released something, maybe a sense that he was not alone, that the world was a place where travelers in language could know the same things...more

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This happened back east of course. I've heard that term a lot since coming to this part of the country. But I never think of the term as a marker of g...more

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Ordinary moments make the life. This is what she knew to be trustworthy and this is what I learned, eventually, from those years we spent together. No...more

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The thinness of contemporary life. I can poke my finger through it.