That, for me, is a very important test of a young writer's commitment because most of them are going to have to continue doing that when they've finished the program.

The short story, on the other hand, is the perfect American form.

There are writers who do start doing the same thing again and again and almost inevitably fall into self-parody.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

But as my brother was doing his research for a book about my father, it became his opinion that the most influential anti-semitism my father encountered when he was growing up was from Jews, because his relatives were German Jews, and doctors.

You don't teach information in a writing workshop.

But a lot of writers - and I'm one of them - do tend to feel dissatisfied. It makes you a little hard to live with, but it's a goad and does keep you alert and restless.

Because the more you write the more you're aware of the weight of your tradition and the difficulties of the form and the more you have already done that you do not want to do again.

Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing.

Anybody can be very destructive in that position without at all meaning to be, and I know that I have been inadvertently destructive in the past for certain people on certain occasions.

There's a joy in writing short stories, a wonderful sense of reward when you pull certain things off.