So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence.

I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.

...free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

Nobody with a good car needs to be justified.

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.

The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying attention to the sky.

The type of mind that can understand good fiction is not necessarily the educated mind, but it is at all times the kind of mind that is willing to have its sense of mystery deepened by contact with reality, and its sense of reality deepened by contact with mystery.