The truth is not distorted here, but rather a distortion is used to get at truth.

Tennessee's a hillbilly dumping ground, and Georgia's a lousy state too.

Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.

Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.

Grace changes us and change is painful".

I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mention. I am not writing a conventional novel, and I think that the quality of the novel I write will derive precisely from the peculiarity or aloneness, if you will, of the experience I write from.

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.