Interviewer: You were in your forties when you wrote the first of the stories from Heart Songs. Do you think you had a late start when it comes to writing fiction?

Proulx: Well, I did yeah. But so what? Why should it bother anybody when somebody starts to write?

Interviewer: It’s fewer years writing the stories that you seem to enjoy writing.

Proulx: Oh, yeah, I suppose, but that’s OK too. The world is spared lots of crap.