Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.
I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.
Conviction without experience makes for harshness.