"Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered."

"My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. …"

"You think it more difficult to turn air into wine than to turn wine into blood?"

"The trouble is I don't believe my unbelief."

"Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline."

"The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you …"

"Have you seen a room from which faith has gone?...Like a marriage from which love has gone...And patience, patience e…"

"The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that m…"

"It is the story-teller's task to elicit sympathy and a measure of understanding for those who lie outside the boundar…"

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escap…"