the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life.

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.

God's Will is what we would choose if we knew what God knows.

Love is not 'blind' but visionary: It sees into the very heart of its object And sees the 'real self' behind and in the midst Of the frailties and shortcomings of the person.

An ametuer is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.

To have a traitor for an ally is to have an enemy in waiting

South of Somewhere and north of Nowhere.

I don't have any health problems, but to keep your health improves your quality of life.

I think all record companies should be run by a musician. Just as you wouldn't trust your health to an electrician.

I grew up with brothers. Girls terrified me.

Portraits are the most intimate photographs. The image will survive the subject.

In the wave lies the secret of creation.