...in other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama Interview - March 1964

Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Weeping for Anna Karenina and being terrified by Hannibal Lecter, entering the heart of darkness with Mistah Kurtz, having Holden Caulfield ring you up - some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.

Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward.

In Maycomb, if one went for a walk with no definite purpose in mind, it was correct to believe one's mind incapable of definite purpose.

I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout

Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steady drinkers.