Purity strikes me as the most mysterious of the virtues and the more I think about it the less I know about it.

Let me make no bones about it: I write from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. Nothing is more repulsive to me than the idea of myself setting up a little universe of my own choosing and propounding a little immoralistic message. I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas.

All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.

For me it is the virgin birth, the Incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified.

The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.

Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.

She was a good Christian woman with a large respect for religion, though she did not, of course, believe any of it was true.