Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.

I've done more harm by the falseness of trying to please than by the honesty of trying to hurt.

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

A rattlesnake that doesn't bite teaches you nothing.

The emotion, the ecstasy of love, we all want, but God spare us the responsibility.

It is not easy to be solitary unless you are also born ruthless. Every solitary repudiates someone.

In their sympathies, children feel nearer animals than adults. They frolic with animals, caress them, share with them feelings neither has words for. Have they ever stroked any adult with the love they bestow on a cat? Hugged any grownup with the ecstasy they feel when clasping a puppy?