Conscience represents a fetich to which good people sacrifice their own happiness, bad people their neighbors'.

I hated the things they believe in, the things they so innocently and charmingly pretended. I hated the sanctimonious piety that let people hurt helpless creatures. I hated the prayers and the hymns - the fountains and the red images that coloured their drab music, the fountains filled with blood, the sacrifice of the lamb.

Nothing, except the weather report or a general maxim of conduct, is so unsafe to rely upon as a theory of fiction.

... the life of the mind is reality, and love without romantic illumination is a spiritless matter.

A good novel cannot be too long or a bad novel too short.

A farmer's got to be born, same as a fool. You can't make a corn pone out of flour dough by the twistin' of it.

I've liked life well enough, but I reckon I'll like death even better as soon as I've gotten used to the feel of it. ... I shouldn't be amazed to find it less lonely than life after I'm once safely settled.