There are two qualities that make fiction. One is the sense of mystery and the other is the sense of manners. You get the manners from the texture of existence that surrounds you. The great advantage of being a Southern writer is that we don't have to go anywhere to look for manners; bad or good, we've got them in abundance. We in the South live in a society that is rich in contradiction, rich in irony, rich in contrast, and particularly rich in its speech

In my travels I am often asked if college stifles young writers. In my opinion, it doesn't stifle them enough.

I suppose half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it.

He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him.

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.

...I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.

Being a Georgia author is a rather specious dignity, on the same order as, for the pig, being a Talmadge ham.