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Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.

I've been writing all these books that have been largely autobiographical and yet, really, they don't tell you anything about me. I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.

I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are.

But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?

If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story.

The goal is to have every character take on a life of his or her own. Sometimes characters will come into the story that I haven't planned.

I'm not saying that I am all of my characters, but for me to bring a character to life, you've got to be able to find your own truth.

I don't want to play myself up as a hero, because it would make me unbelievable. I'd rather settle for people thinking that I'm a bum, but digging my stories, than liking me and not being able to believe in my stories. That's one reason I've been hard on myself, because I want my stuff to be believable.