Art transcends its limitations only by staying within them.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

The reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror.

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

I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are.

In the greatest fiction, the writer's moral sense coincides with his dramatic sense, and I see no way for it to do this unless his moral judgement is part of the very act of seeing, and he is free to use it. I have heard it said that belief in Christian dogma is a hindrance to the writer, but I myself have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, it frees the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing his respect for mystery.

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.