Envy has the ugliness of a trapped rat that has gnawed its own foot in its effort to escape.

The novelist must be his own most harsh critic and also his own most loving admirer and about both he must say nothing.

The opportunities for heroism are limited in this kind of world: the most people can do is sometimes not to be as weak as they've been at other times.

People are able to live with only half a heart, to live without real compassion, because they are able to use words that are only forms.

I have no concern for the common man except that he should not be so common.

Life isn't just to be found, you have to work for it.

Once a Catholic always a Catholic.

The impulse to write a novel comes from a momentary unified vision of life.

The roots of art and play lie very close together.

All fiction for me is a kind of magic and trickery, a confidence trick, trying to make people believe something is true that isn't.

Gerald Middleton was a man of mildly but persistently depressive temperament. Such men are not at their best at breakfast, nor is the week before Christmas their happiest time.

Poetry, is a life long war wagedagainst ineffable beauty.

When others try to provoke (instigate) you and you don’t get provoked, it is known as a spiritual victory.

We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity … in fact our movement is Christian.

Existence is tedious, anyway.

The leftist drive for control is insatiable.

Face your fears, Halt had always thought him, and more often than not they fade like mist in the sunshine

Figure out what works for you and what doesn't.

The people who love my paintings, that respond to them the most, they're spectators, they're not viewers.

Don't be late to the theater. The opening scene is a goody.

The greatest fault is to be conscious of none.