It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books. [] It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: he made the books and he died.

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

If a story is in you, it has to come out.

He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

The quality an artist must have is objectivity in judging his work, plus the honesty and courage not to kid himself about it.