"We write from our obsessions, and often they involve memories of incidents and people that we've never quite been able to resolve in any sort of satisfactory way.  These moments linger like the pea under the mattress that disturbed the princess's sleep, or the splinter under the skin that's sore when we touch it."

"We can use strategies derived from what we know about narrative to give our non-narrative essays more resonance."

"The reporting of facts ... rarely contains the whole truth.  I say this because facts involve people and people are made up of contradictions.  The reporting of what happened rarely includes the more important question of what the story means to the people who stand at its center."

"As we read [essays], we participate in the writer's attempt to find what he or she didn't know when first coming to the page."

"What narrative teaches us about characterization: we are all made up of contradictions, and, as a result, we are all somewhat unknowable.  We are capable of surprise precisely because of this fact."

"A teacher of mine used to say that a good short story led to a moment of surprise, which he defined as more truth than we think we have a right to expect."

"Often what brings us to the page is the fact that something is unsettled, something isn't all right.  We write from a need to know; we want to figure out what we think, what we feel, what something means."

"Sooner or later we have to face who we are in the world around us.  We have to respond.  Eventually, we have to speak from the truest parts of ourselves."

"Sometimes it's as simple as that.  Tell a story.  Tell it simply and directly.  Tell us what happened."

"We should all feel as if we're in over our heads when we write; that's how we know we're writing about something that really matters." (artist)