I find that short stories are almost like palate cleansers or brain cleansers.

I kind of want to be seen as an American writer, not just a New York writer.

I think when you first start out, you're writing books that are about your immediate place.

What a character eats is a detail - like eye color or a favorite song. But food is also our lifeblood.

It should be said upfront that I totally dig people who work in bookstores and libraries. They love books, and I love books, and that is all I really need to know. If they are friendly to me, then we are clearly soul mates.

I am not one of those people who string their exes along. Instead, I run and hide: under the covers, behind my computer screen, on opposite coasts of the country.

In addition to public housing, South Williamsburg is home to shabby artists' lofts like mine, apartments of Hasidic Jews, and one extremely tall, high-priced condo.

I have watched Occupy Wall Street mostly from the sidelines.

Many online journals get the most hits of the day during the lunch hour.

Some journal writers choose to password-protect their site, which is either an incredibly responsible act or a paranoid one.

The best thing about the Web is the sound of all the individual voices rising.

I wrote a novel. It's called 'The Middlesteins.' It's fiction. It's not a memoir. I'm not a spokesperson.

I was fat because I lived in the Midwest in the 1970s, and everyone was a little fat then and only getting fatter.

I was fat because my parents were a little fat themselves at that point in their lives, and I ate what they ate.

Anything by Lorrie Moore speaks to a certain kind of person.

No matter how much money I made from writing, I'd keep the bookstore job.

My parents are still married. They don't weigh 350 pounds; they go to the gym all the time.

Listen: I'm OK cute. I'm no stunner.

I can act like a boy as much as I want, but when I wake up in the morning, I'm still a woman.

In the past, I was sometimes put in this women's lit category, and I was never really sure that was the appropriate place for me - although I certainly recognize it can be helpful and correct for other people.

I check my phone first thing when I wake up in the morning. I usually take it up with me to bed so it's on the floor next to the bed, although not actually in bed with me, because I really do not want to be the person who sleeps with their phone.

Social media can connect you with other people in so many wonderful ways - but it can also make you really sick of yourself.

I do not mourn the death of the printed letter in a snobby, East Coast, patrician way - 'Where have our manners gone?' - but because I love objects, I love paper, and I love something that I can hold to my chest for a moment. Still, I bear no grudge against the e-mail form itself.

As creative people, we should be really conscious of being of service in our work, being as generous as we can.