Sickness is a place, ... and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.

When you leave a man alone with his Bible and the Holy Ghost inspires him, he's going to be a Catholic one way or another, even though he knows nothing about the visible church. His kind of Christianity may not be socially desirable, but will be real in the sight of God.

When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business.

Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.

I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it.

To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.