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.

Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.

Tennessee's a hillbilly dumping ground, and Georgia's a lousy state too.

The reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror.

I am a Catholic not like someone else would be a Baptist or a Methodist, but like someone else would be an atheist.

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics.