Poorly written novels--no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters--are not good in themselves and are therefore not really edifying.

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

... the novelist is bound by the reasonable possibilities, not the probabilities, of his culture.

I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.

Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are

Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God!

I am very much afraid that to the fiction writer the fact that we shall always have the poor with us is a source of satisfaction,for it means, essentially, that he will always be able to find someone like himself.