Perhaps a body of work isn't necessary for a short story writer. If you do one story that survives in an anthology, that's enough.

This is how one feels in the presence of a work of art.

I believe that each human being has within himself or herself at least one poem or short story, or perhaps even a full length book.

Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.

For me, the short story is not a character sketch, a mouse trap, an epiphany, a slice of suburban life. It is the flowering of a symbol center. It is a poem grafted onto sturdier stock.

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.