The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself.

You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s sufferings and not your own.

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

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

Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

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.

[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .

It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth

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

The best thing that life can offer is happiness. The best way to find happiness is through unconditional love.

We have waited long. Learn who to trust. It is heart that knows truth. Don't close eyes and wait for path to choose you. Choose path and follow it.

There is no such a thing as being weak minded by nature. No one can ever be weak minded without the constant presence of negative thoughts and beliefs in one's mind.

A soldier never dies. His blood makes the grass green for his children.

I am actuated by an ambition which I believe to be an honourable one — the ambition of serving the great cause of truth, while endeavouring to forward the literature of the country.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don't go out and party. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs and I'm not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work.

Being offended is a choice. I believe that. You don't have - you don't hear a word and you have to be offended.

I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual.

You cannot force growth of human life and civilization, any more than you can force these slow-growing trees. That is the economy of Almighty God, that all good growth is slow growth.