What's Your Name?" "emma Gould,"

The Best Thing That Can Happen To People Entering Creative Professions Is The Dwindling Of All Other Possibilities.

I Found That I Could Write Two Kinds Of Short Stories: I Could Write Very Absurd, Kind Of Surrealistic, Funny Stories; Or I Could Write Very Dark, Realistic - Hyper-realistic - Stories. I Was Never Happy With That, Because I Couldn't Meld The Two.

It's Good Not Only To Realize That You Can't Please All Of The People All Of The Time, But That You Don't Want To. There's A Certain Type Of Reader That You Don't Ever Want To Write For.

I Won The Parental Lottery. Most Of The Kids I Grew Up With Either Came From Really Fractured Homes, Or Really Violent Ones. I Went Home To A Very Traditional, Good Irish Catholic Family.

And Often The Worst Thing Wasn't The Victims--they Were Dead, After All, And Beyond Any More Pain. The Worst Thing Was Those Who Loved Them And Survived Them. Often The Walking Dead From Now On, Shell-shocked, Hearts Ruptured, Stumbling Through The Remainder Of Their Lives Without Anything Left Inside Of Them But Blood And Organs, Impervious To Pain, Having Learned Nothing Except That The Worst Things Did, In Fact, Sometimes Happen. (mystic River)