I don't go to church any more, but I think that Catholicism is rather like the brand they use on cattle: I feel so formed in that Catholic mould that I don't think I could adopt any other form of spirituality. I still get feelings of consolation about churches.

I suppose, I said, it is one definition of love, the belief in something that only the two of you can see.

A neighbor is something that belongs to the stable world of home life, the thing that lives next door to you.

Writing, more than any other art, is indexed to the worthiness of the self because it is identified in peoples minds with emotion.

People are least aware of others when demonstrating their own power over them.

The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesnt want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.

There is always shame in the creation of an expressive work, whether it's a book or a clay pot. Every artist worries about how they will be seen by others through their work. When you create, you aspire to do justice to yourself, to remake yourself, and there is always the fear that you will expose the very thing that you hoped to transform.