But when I go to Chicago, I know I'm home.

Even if it's meaningless . . . sometimes, nice things happen.

I cannot fix on the hour or the spot or the look or the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate. I hate murderously.

A Christian has no business being satisfied with mediocrity. He's supposed to reach for the stars. Why not? He's not on his own anymore. He has God's help now.

Most of the literary classics are worth reading, if you've nothing better to do.

Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.

I have another Russian idea, too, with a place and a period, so I guess I have enough to keep me busy for quite some time, especially considering that I'm such a slow writer.

Why, after all, must everyone like music? That they are missing something is just the lover's opinion.

The hunger and desire to go racing, however, never leaves your blood but the right opportunity has never really come along - until now that is.

I think slavery was an awful, awful period in our history, but when I look at what's become of black culture since emancipation, I think you have to admit, maybe the Confederacy was on to something