What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.

I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mention. I am not writing a conventional novel, and I think that the quality of the novel I write will derive precisely from the peculiarity or aloneness, if you will, of the experience I write from.

The basic experience of everyone is the experience of human limitation.

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in 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.

Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

If there were no hell, we would be like the animals. No hell, no dignity.