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

The only way, I think, to learn to write short stories is to write them, and then try to discover what you have done.

Christianity is a strangely cheery religion.

It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.

He and the girl had almost nothing to say to each other. One thing he did say was, 'I ain't got any tattoo on my back.' 'What you got on it?' the girl said. 'My shirt,' Parker said. 'Haw.' 'Haw, haw,' the girl said politely.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama . . . . Either one is serious about salvation or one is not. And it is well to realize that the maximum amount of seriousness admits the maximum amount of comedy. Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.