you can't fit the same religion to every man any mo' than you can the same pair of breeches. The big man takes the big breeches an' the little man takes the small ones, an' it's jest the same with religion. It may be cut after one pattern, but it's might apt to get its shape from the wearer inside. Why, thar ain't any text so peaceable that it ain't drawn blood from somebody.

It is human nature to overestimate the thing you've never had.

Moderation has never yet engineered an explosion

What fools people are when they think they can make two lives belong together by saying words over them.

For me, the novel is experience illumined by imagination.

Cruelty is the only sin.

I had no place in any coterie, or in any reciprocal self-advertising. I stood alone. I stood outside. I wanted only to learn. I wanted only to write better.