The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.

It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.

The novelist is required to open his eyes on the world around him and look. If what he sees is not highly edifying, he is still required to look. Then he is required to reproduce, with words, what he sees.

I once received a letter from an old lady in California who informed me that when the tired reader comes home at night, he wishes to read something that will lift up his heart. And it seems her heart had not been lifted up by anything of mine she had read. I think that if her heart had been in the right place, it would have been lifted up.

It is always difficult to get across to people who are not professional writers that a talent to write does not mean a talent to write anything at all.

I do not like the raw sound of the human voice in unison unless it is under the discipline of music.

Either practice restraint or be prepared for crowding