A combination of all that was best in the gladdest days of the departing year.

Before the war it was always the United States *are*, after the war it was the United States is... it made us an is.

The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.

If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing.

People make a grievous error thinking that a list of facts is the truth. Facts are just the bare bones out of which truth is made.

When you grow up in a totally segregated society, where everybody around you believes that segregation is proper, you have a hard time. You can't believe how much it's a part of your thinking.

A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.

As a Southerner I would have to say that one of the main importances of the War is that Southerners have a sense of defeat which none of the rest of the country has.

I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.

I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.

Longevity conquers scandal every time.

The wrath of God is never an evil wrath. God gets angry because he loves people like a mother would love her child if someone were to harm it. There is something wrong if the mother never gets angry

The role of the Christian is to let other people know what Jesus has done, not to think of themselves as a member of an exclusive Heaven club.

He's totally caught me, and I'm never letting him toss me back.

I was always interested in films that scar.

Almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it.

I write very, very slowly, and for me, I have to summon all sorts of resources to make one of these pieces work.

Dead men do not cooperate with grace. Unless regeneration takes place first, there is no possibility of faith.

America is the moral force that defeated communism and all those who would put the human soul itself into bondage.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

When you find somebody good, keep them in your life.