I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

I've never written anything that hasn't been in my mind for a long time - seven or eight years.

The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance.

I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.

I suppose . . . in writing you can't have regrets. I mean, you just get it down the way it was . . . it's only wishful thinking that things could be other than they were.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.