“My stories do have plot. They’re not just scattered language; they’re controlled, toward an end.”

I grew up when people seemed actually to be hurting themselves for their art. Of course, some of it was phony.

I always intended to be light and open. I misjudged the American audience.

I wouldn’t buy somebody’s album on a dare if they called him a musician’s musician. I don’t write to be a writer’s writer. I don’t want to be like the little-magazine writer.

Love and despair go hand in hand.

When you’re not involved, other people’s unhappiness seems to be about the funniest damn thing on earth because you think you can solve it, that you are God, that you are above this, and that their unhappiness is just such useless toil and agony. If it’s you, it ceases to be a comedy.

What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is… We are all overbrained and overemotioned.

I thought I was writing for a fairly hip, intelligent crowd; I just thought there were more of them out there. But they’re not. They’re not out there waiting. They’re not gonna use their intelligence on your book.

I don’t really care about plot; I want to have a page-turner in a different kind of way.

I found out about reviews early on. They’re mostly written by sad men on bad afternoons. That’s probably why I’m less angry than some writers, who are so narcissistic they consider every line of every review, even a thoughtful one, as major treason.

The alcohol had the code and mystery about it as a writer’s drug, but I’m glad that’s been debunked. But the trouble with the drinking, much as I hate to admit it, is it helped the work.

I was always kind of florid. And full of rhetoric. That was my flaw. My whole time writing, I’ve had to work against that because it can be a wrecking posture.

Professional Southerners sicken me.

Children will listen to anything elders say to survive, and if you grew up without an elder telling you there was a god, what did your parents say to you?

My best stories come out of nowhere, with no concern for form at all.

I lost my second marriage because of drinking, and I loved the woman very much. But I thought I needed booze to write. I’m glad I was disabused.

Randomness I love. And I still love just a holler right in the middle of an ongoing narrative. Pain or joy, ecstasy.

Cultures are virtual realities made of language.

Advertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal

Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.

If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.

In the original language, ‘Fear the Lord’ doesn’t mean be afraid. It means sustaining a joyful, astonished awe, and wonder before Him.

In India the odd thing is that English is this almost artificial language floating on the surface of a place with about fifty other languages. The same is true of Nigeria but even more so.

The media must be used effectively to reach the masses. You have to find a new language in which to address the people and demonstrate what is possible.

To have suffered much is like knowing many languages. Thou hast learned to understand all.