What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.

I write with as much objectivity as I can.

I had to see and feel and be with the thing that I wanted to write about.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

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 artist must be like a heart surgeon. He must approach something with sympathy, but with a sort of coldness and work and work until he finds some kind of perfection in his work. You can't have blood splashing all over the place. Things must be done very cleanly.