If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him.

I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.

It's easier to bleed than sweat, Mr. Motes.

The novelist is required to open his eyes on the world around him and look. If what he sees is not highly edifying, he is still required to look. Then he is required to reproduce, with words, what he sees.

Unadaptability is often a virtue.

I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of the times.

I love a lot of people, understand none of them.