...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

You ought to be able to discover something from your stories. If you don't, probably nobody else will.

I never understand how writers can succumb to vanity - what you work the hardest on is usually the worst.

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

There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics; but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.

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.

Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are