Dear God, I don't want to have invented my faith to satisfy my weakness. I don't want to have created God to my own image as they're so fond of saying. Please give me the necessary grace, oh Lord, and please don't let it be as hard to get as Kafka made it.

Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

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

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 come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.