She had managed after he died to get the two of them through college and beyond; but she had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room scho...
Poorly written novels -- no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters -- are not good in themselves and are therefore not really edifying.
Lady,' The Misfit said, looking beyond her far into the wood, 'there never was a body that give the undertaker a tip.
I have enough energy to write with and as that is all I have any business doing anyhow, I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.
I have 50 or 60 pages on the [new] novel but I still expect to be a long time at it. It’s a theme that requires prayer and fasting to make it get anywhere. I manage to pray but am a very sloppy faster...
I am largely worried about wingless chickens. I feel this is the time for me to fulfill myself by stepping in and saving the chicken but I don't know how exactly since I am not bold. I only know I bel...
I am going to be the World Authority on Peafowl, and I hope to be offered a chair some day at the Chicken College.
He groaned to see that she was off on that topic. She rolled into it every few days like a train on an open track. He knew every stop, every junction, every swamp along the way, and knew the exact poi...
He felt his hunger no longer as a pain but as a tide. He felt it rising in himself through time and darkness, rising through the centuries, and he knew that it rose in a line of men whose lives were c...
Drama usually bases itself on the bedrock of original sin, whether the writer thinks in theological terms or not. Then, too, any character in a serious novel is supposed to carry a burden of meaning l...
Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.
You act like you think you got wiser blood than anybody else, he said, but you ain’t! I’m the one has it. Not you. Me. Haze didn’t say anything. He stood there for an instant, small in the
Who’s there? the voice from inside said and there was a quality about it now that seemed final. The knob rattled and the voice said peremptorily, Who’s there, I ast you? Parker bent down and put his m...
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
We are now living in an age which doubts both fact and value. It is the life of this age that we wish to see and judge.
She appeared to adore Thomas's repugnance to her and to draw it out of him every chance she got as if it added delectably to her martyrdom.
Listen, lady, he said in a high voice, if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now. His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother's head cleared for an instant. She s...
Listen, friends, said the disciple confidently, [...] I didn't have a friend in the world. Do you know what it's like not to have a friend in the world?It ain't no worsen havinum that would put a kni...
Julian thought he could have stood his lot better if she had been selfish, if she had been an old hag who drank and screamed at him. He walked along, saturated in depression, as if in the midst of his...
If you want to get anywhere in religion, you got to keep it sweet.