“He read with intensity and was passionately in love with every character, every turn of plot or twist of language. He made the characters come alive for us, like he wasn't reading a work of fiction but telling stories about his own friends.”

“The more I know about God, I am convinced He likes to read books and authors are His librarians. Every soul is a story waiting to be read.”

“Always I find when I begin to write there is one character who obstinately will not come alive...He never does the unexpected thing, he never surprises me, he never takes charge. Every other character helps, he only hinders. And yet one cannot do without him. I can imagine a God feeling in just that way about some of us. The saints, one would suppose, in a sense create themselves. They come alive. They are capable of the surprising act or word. The stand outside the plot, unconditioned by it. But we have to be pushed around. We have the obstinancy of non-existence. We are inextricably bound to the plot, and wearily God forces us, here and there, according to his intention, characters without poetry, without free will, whose only importance is that somewhere, at some time, we help to furnish the scene in which a living character moves and speaks, perhaps the saints with the opportunities for their free will.”

“Every one of us has in himself a continent of undiscovered character. Happy is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul. ”

“He reads every book in his home but it is not enough. The country boy craves stories. He devours every poem and fable in his school and library. Still he hungers. For stories.”

“Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.”