Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.

When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.

Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.

Manners are of such great consequence to the novelist that any kind will do. Bad manners are better than no manners at all, and because we are losing our customary manners, we are probably overly conscious of them; this seems to be a condition that produces writers.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

I preach there are all kinds of truth, your truth and somebody else's. But behind all of them there is only one truth and that is that there's no truth.

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

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

The Southerner is usually tolerant of those weaknesses that proceed from innocence.

It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.

When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business.

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.

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.

Doctors always think anybody doing something they arent is a quack also they think all patients are idiots.

Dogma can in no way limit a limitless God.

Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom.

...free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

You have to quit confusing a madness with a mission.

A story has to have muscle as well as meaning, and the meaning has to be in the muscle.

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.

Everyone is entitled to our opinion.

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance.

Both politicians and journalists face situations which strain their honesty and humanity. My opinion is that politicians on the average stand up somewhat better than journalists.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.

The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.

My original opinion still stands. I don't think he should have put it out.

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.