On the subject of the feminist business, I just never think...of qualities which are specifically feminine or masculine. I suppose I divide people into two classes: the Irksome and the Non-Irksome without regard to sex. Yes and there are the Medium Irksome and the Rare Irksome.

Harcourt sent my book to Evelyn Waugh and his comment was: “If this is really the unaided work of a young lady, it is a remarkable product.” My mother was vastly insulted. She put the emphasis on if and lady. Does he suppose you’re not a lady? she says.

Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom.

Once the process [of conversion] is begun and continues...you are continually turning inward toward God and away from your own egocentricity...you have to see this selfish side of yourself in order to turn away from it. I measure God by everything I am not. I begin with that.

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics.

I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.