Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow.

A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.

I am very handy with my advice and then when anybody appears to be following it, I get frantic.

He and the girl had almost nothing to say to each other. One thing he did say was, 'I ain't got any tattoo on my back.' 'What you got on it?' the girl said. 'My shirt,' Parker said. 'Haw.' 'Haw, haw,' the girl said politely.

The Catholic novelist in the South will see many distorted images of Christ, but he will certainly feel that a distorted image of Christ is better than no image at all. I think he will feel a good deal more kinship with backwoods prophets and shouting fundamentalists than he will with those politer elements for whom the supernatural is an embarrassment and for whom religion has become a department of sociology or culture or personality development.

We are not judged by what we are basically. We are judged by how hard we use what we have been given. Success means nothing to the Lord.

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing.