It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.

Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are

Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories it is something organic, something that grows out of the material, and this being the case, it is different for every story of any account that has ever been written.

Anyone who survives a southern childhood has enough material to last a lifetime.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

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

It's easier to bleed than sweat, Mr. Motes.