I do not like the raw sound of the human voice in unison unless it is under the discipline of music.

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

Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning.

In a sense sickness is a place, more instructive than a long trip to Europe, and it's always a place where there's no company, where nobody can follow. Sickness before death is a very appropriate thing and I think those who don't have it miss one of God's mercies.

You can't clobber any reader while he's looking. You divert his attention, then you clobber him and he never knows what hit him.

I was a very ancient twelve; my views at that age would have done credit to a Civil War veteran. I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened. The weight of the centuries lies on children, I'm sure of it.

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