It is hard to make your adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them - in which case, if you don't watch out, they cease to be adversaries.

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

If you're a Catholic you believe what the Church teaches and the climate makes no difference.

the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life.

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.

The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself.

The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying attention to the sky.