"Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you."
"The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.”(August 9, 1955)"
"Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better."
"Everywhere I go, I am asked if I think university stifles writers. My opinion is that it doesn't stifle enough of them."
"The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode."
"If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now."