I think I'm a very religious person. I think I believe in God as much as any man does. I don't only believe in God, I know there's God.

I write to try to find out who I am. One of my main themes is manliness. I think I'm trying to figure out what manliness really is.

The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.

Everything's been said, but it needs saying again.

The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.

Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.

I still don't even know if the sheriff will let me see him. And suppose he did; what then? What do I say to him? Do I know what a man is? Do I know how a man is supposed to die? I'm still trying to find out how a man should live. Am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived?