“I love a lot of people, understand none of them...”

“...what they have to say about themselves makes me think that there is a lot of ill-directed good in them.”

“People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.”

“I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.”

“You don't serve God by saying: the Church is ineffective, I'll have none of it. Your pain at its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God. We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suffering on account of it. ”

“Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them.”

“I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”