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.

Nothing ever holds together unless it is mixed with some of one's own blood

I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.

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

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.

The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Church was my first book and I would think it is still my most important book.

I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.