Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me.

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

Christianity is a strangely cheery religion.

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

Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.

Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.

Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.