I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.
Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.
You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.
All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.
Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.
I write to discover what I know.
Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.
People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.
If you don’t hunt it down and kill it, it will hunt you down and kill you.
The old woman was the kind who would not cut down a large old tree because it was a large old tree.
The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery...
Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.
To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me.
A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.
I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.
Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.
She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.