Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.

There is no country but the heart.

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

You don’t choose a story, it chooses you.

The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, "Oh, just let me enjoy the poem."

In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.