Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God!

A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility. It is a mystery in itself, something gratuitous and wholly undeserved, something whose real uses will probably always be hidden from us.

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

It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.

... the novelist is bound by the reasonable possibilities, not the probabilities, of his culture.

Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.

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