The dreams are the skeleton of all reality.

Your parents are the parents you know best. Your brother and sister, if you have them, are the brother and sister you know best. They may not be the ones you like the best. They may not be the most interesting, but they are the closest and probably the clearest to you.

God is the God of the people who are at their wits end, who are right up against it with their backs to the wall, and He delights to come to our help when we need Him most.

Being somebody: it's one of the ideas in life, no? That's what my father made clear to me. The importance of being somebody. He wanted to be somebody. And he underlined to me the fate of trying to be somebody and not quite managing to do it.

I'd given up everything to be a writer, and if I didn't then go on to do that - to write - then I didn't know what would happen to me.

I'm a frotteur, someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.

Hope but not enthusiasm is the proper state for the writer.