Good and evil appear to be joined in every culture at the spine.

I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.

When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.

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

... the man in the violent situation reveals those qualities least dispensable in his personality, those qualities which are all he will have to take into eternity with him.

One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is, nobody in your audience. My audience are the people who think God is dead. At least these are the people I am conscious of writing for.

I don’t want any of this artificial superficial feeling stimulated by the choir. Today I have proved myself a glutton—​for Scotch oatmeal cookies and erotic thought. There is nothing left to say of me.