Evil is dull, that is the worst of it.

Physical infidelity is the signal, the notice given, that all fidelities are undermined.

Childhood is the fiery furnace in which we are melted down to essentials and that essential shaped for good.

I have a great deal of religious symbolism in my stories because I have a very deep sense of religion and also I have a religious training. And I suppose you don't say, `I'm going to have the flowering judas tree stand for betrayal,' but of course it does.

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

All the old houses that I knew when I was a child were full of books, bought generation after generation by members of the family. Nobody told you to read this or not to read that.

It is as hard to find a neutral critic as it is a neutral country in time of war. I suppose if a critic were neutral, he wouldn't trouble to write anything.