I tend not to analyse my work, though I'm frequently intrigued when other people take time to do so.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

Good fiction writers have an instinctive understanding of human nature. That's what makes stories and characters captivating. Good spiritual writers share what they sincerely practice themselves.

Let your work speak for itself:If poor, it will remain silent.If average, it will whisper.If good, it will talk.If great, it will shout.If genius, it will sing.

God sent his beloved creatures to Datça for them to live longer.

In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.

A multitude of words is probably the most formidable means of blurring and obscuring thought. There is no thought, however momentous, that cannot be expressed lucidly in 200 words.

Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them.

Whoever possesses God is happy.

Liberalism demands that people without guns be able to tell people with guns what to do.